I've been "permitted" to death where I live. I spent almost 2 hours talking to an inspector doing a "final" on the barn I have been building and learned that our local permits go to the extreme. By the law where I live I have to get a permit to do about anything at my place except painting or changing 'window treatments' (read: curtains). If one of my kids manages to drop something hard and heavy and cracks a ceramic tile I am supposed to get a permit to replace that tile and must have the work inspected!
The inspector here was a decent guy and has been in his position for 23 years. He said it was so much easier for him when he goes to inspect something where all of the proper permits were pulled and all prior inspections had been done; such as I had on this barn. When I asked him of the possible issues someone would have if they didn't get permits I was shocked to hear what he said. Many times buildings have to be torn down, moved or changed. That could get extremely 'spensive!
For example; when I applied to build my barn, the county had to approve the size, height, construction method, construction materials and elevation of my barn. Even though I do not live within any city limits I still cannot build a barn that is larger than my house unless it is specifically for agriculture use or I apply for a "variance". That variance is only granted after every property owner within 2 of me (people with land touching my land and people with land touching their land) receive notices of what I intend to do and when the county holds the public meeting to hear my reason for asking for said variance. If any of these people object, the permit could be denied if the county council agrees with their objection.
I don't know how large anyone's home is on here, but with five kids, my home is over 6500 sq. ft. finished area. They do not allow any barns to be built that are larger than the home without a variance. I figured I should be able to build a larger barn no problem.
However, my square footage really doesn't count I discovered. When my county says "size", they mean the actual 'footprint' of the home. If your home is over one story in height, none of the upper floors count in figuring the square footage! Even worse, even though my pool house is a completely finished 'house' in it's own respect, the entire size of the pool house counts against the size of my main house! So, without being used only for agriculture use, I have to have a 'variance' for about anything larger than a yard barn. About the only thing that helped me with my house being tall is that our county requires barns to be no taller than the home. I was sweating that part because the last barn I built has 80' wide trusses on top of 20' side walls. Fortunately my home was tall enough; barely.
I understand the permit reasoning but sometimes they go waaaaaay too far. I've been permitted to death and taxed to death. If I lived in an area that is considered in a potential flood plain I would have to raise the property or no permit for anything will be issued. I've been told that our county has been sued by people buying homes that have always flooded during storms for extremely low prices and then, after they move in and their home floods again, have sued the city for their flooding problems. Anyway, if the person listed in the original post was in my area they'd be tearing everything down and paying fines. And for neighbors, even though I don't have any close, I had no less than 3 call the county to make sure I had proper permits during construction of this last barn!
