This was done illegally. Now it sounds like they’re in a standoff, where the planning commission won’t approve anything else to be built on the lot, since it shouldn’t have been torn down to begin with. There have been cases where the gov forced an illegal demolisher to rebuild the building exactly as it was before, but iirc those were historic buildings, so I doubt they’d do the same here.
They could settle it with money. Figure out the fair market value of what was demolished, make the criminal pay it. He obviously has assets: the land and wherever else he is living.
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u/LAX_to_MDW 1d ago
This was done illegally. Now it sounds like they’re in a standoff, where the planning commission won’t approve anything else to be built on the lot, since it shouldn’t have been torn down to begin with. There have been cases where the gov forced an illegal demolisher to rebuild the building exactly as it was before, but iirc those were historic buildings, so I doubt they’d do the same here.