In August 1993, Seal Beach, California, ordered a homeowner to remove a six-foot dome atop his house, even though the city's planning department had explicitly approved the house and dome design three years earlier. (The homeowner had built the dome so that his children could learn about astronomy.) The city council ordered the destruction of the dome in part because it did not comply with zoning rules enacted after the dome's construction. The owner estimated that removing the dome would cost him $13,000.

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