9 ms·

It's like this throughout the real estate and real estate development industries to be honest. Building my own house I expected plenty of savings over buying (

It's like this throughout the real estate and real estate development industries to be honest. Building my own house I expected plenty of savings over buying (and to be fair, I still did of course), but even beyond permitting (which is also more about who you know than what you know) I encountered things like this (roughly from most mind-boggling to least): - You can't build a septic system, you have to use sewer because you're in city limits (later rescinded when they realized they would have to pump my sewage up to the city sewer. - You need to hire an engineer to make sure your lumber is ok (we milled our own lumber) - You need to hire an architect to make sure your plans are ok - You didn't finish in 6 months? Buy a new permit please. I know there were a million more things like this, but it's been over ten years and some things you don't want to remember... Contractors act like I'm taking food out of their kids' mouths by wanting to do the work myself, and the municipality is on their side.

mholm 3y ago
The municipality is on their side because many people who try to get variances on these things are legitimately cutting terrible corners that compromise both the safety of the inhabitants (present and future) and the neighbors. It's inconvenient, but these regulations save a lot of lives/QoL from bad/naive actors.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  The municipality is on their side because they're overworked. In even the smallest town, if any appreciable percentage of new builds required custom handling... the system would instantly be person-starved and start backing up. Business-as-usual is the fast/efficient path from a paperwork standpoint. Anything odd is (a) discouraged and (b) looked at with annoyance because it takes more time. One reason it's almost always cheaper to tear-down fire damaged houses with still viable framing. No one wants to take the time to quantify exactly how much the framing was damaged.
  - salamanderss 3y ago
    My town solved the guilty until proven innocent issue regarding permits by just giving people carte blanche. Imo this is far more rational: if the county can't/won't verify paperwork they should default towards freedom and let the property owner have at it rather than presuming guilt and saying you haven't the money/people to check it. Granted people aren't rich where I live so we'd rather them live in potentially a subpar house and maybe have it fall in on them than be homeless and die from the elements. Re below: USA / Arizona. Pick the right county and no code inspections.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Which country/state? Inquiring minds want to know!
duped 3y ago
Those examples sound pretty reasonable, what's the issue?
- pixl97 3y ago
  They want to be the reason why the laws are created, they don't want to have to follow them.
  - trey-jones 3y ago
    I will own this I guess. You are correct to some extent: I don't want to have to follow laws that cause unreasonable expense, when they are created to prevent disaster that I am going to prevent without your oversight. You'll just have to take my word for it: my house is better built than any for-profit house you'll find on the market today. It's for me and my family, of course I would make sure that it is! The wood that I milled is thicker, heavier, stronger than any Yellawood you'll find. Yet I can't be trusted to recognize a board that shouldn't be used as a joist. I have to higher a professional to look at it's fit for use. Which could legitimately be someone that's never worked with lumber before. You have to admit it's insane. By the way they definitely stamp and sell lumber that I would never use in a joist.
    - duped 3y ago
      > You have to admit it's insane All of this sounds way more reasonable than "trust me bro, I know better" from some random person building a house. That would be insane. > You'll just have to take my word for it Building codes (paid for in blood) are written so we don't have to take your word for it
LeafItAlone 3y ago
Your list of “mind-boggling” items all seem extremely reasonable to me. Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. And having lived in neighborhoods with septic systems most of my life, a little neglect can go a long way. Unless you’re building in the middle of nowhere (far from anything labeled a “city”), there are obligations to those around you. Signed, someone whose neighbors properties have dilapidated buildings in various states of disrepair.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. Why on earth would the city or the neighbors be "responsible" for that?
  - salamanderss 3y ago
    They usually aren't it's an argument used to scare people into making housing stock replenishment more expensive and lock in property values. I'm building a house now. I sent the county... A picture of a square on a map. No plans no inspections nothing. Fuck all that. I build based on what seems reasonable after a cool Busch Light and then I just do it without asking permission from anybody. Half my county did the same. It's not rocket science, and the world here hasn't fallen apart or burned down. But you will be told the opposite to get locked into expensive contractors and corrupt inspectors and the cash extracting nightmare licensing and permitting systems that surround that. And before anybody gets too excited... this is all 100% legal if you pick the right spot.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    When my neighbor's house fails and causes damage to my property, I'm not legally "responsible" but I still have to deal with a whole lot of negatives. Hence the "or deal with it" part of OP's statement. Far better to reduce the risks by making sure the project isn't being half-assed up front.
  - kemayo 3y ago
mywittyname 3y ago
> - You can't build a septic system, you have to use sewer because you're in city limits (later rescinded when they realized they would have to pump my sewage up to the city sewer. You got lucky. Houses with lift stations are a thing. Usually a bunch of houses will go to a common lift station, but that's not always the case. My dad runs a company installing and servicing various sewage treatment solutions and I spent a lot of weekends as a child going to nice houses on service calls because their lift station threw an alarm and it wasn't pumping their sewage.
pixl97 3y ago
Why is number one the most boggling? Not dealing with sewage correctly is a public health hazard. In most places if there is a sanitary sewer hookup you must, by law, connect to it. Now in your particular case they don't have a sewage lift, but if one is ever installed it is likely you will have to connect to it if you ever need to do septic maintenance again. I certainly hope your municipality requires regular inspections of your septic so you're not flowing shit water into the local environment.
aidenn0 3y ago
Your list seems fairly reasonable. I looked into building where I was (because land was surprisingly cheap compared to houses) and was told to allocate 2 years and $250k for permits. A significant chunk of that was paying an architect to respond to the city and resubmit the plans. This was back when most houses were under $1M, and the lots we were looking at were around $200k, so the permits were literally more valuable than the land, and a pretty large fraction of the value of the improvement.

mholm 3y ago

The municipality is on their side because many people who try to get variances on these things are legitimately cutting terrible corners that compromise both the safety of the inhabitants (present and future) and the neighbors. It's inconvenient, but these regulations save a lot of lives/QoL from bad/naive actors.

ethbr1 3y ago
The municipality is on their side because they're overworked. In even the smallest town, if any appreciable percentage of new builds required custom handling... the system would instantly be person-starved and start backing up. Business-as-usual is the fast/efficient path from a paperwork standpoint. Anything odd is (a) discouraged and (b) looked at with annoyance because it takes more time. One reason it's almost always cheaper to tear-down fire damaged houses with still viable framing. No one wants to take the time to quantify exactly how much the framing was damaged.
- salamanderss 3y ago
  My town solved the guilty until proven innocent issue regarding permits by just giving people carte blanche. Imo this is far more rational: if the county can't/won't verify paperwork they should default towards freedom and let the property owner have at it rather than presuming guilt and saying you haven't the money/people to check it. Granted people aren't rich where I live so we'd rather them live in potentially a subpar house and maybe have it fall in on them than be homeless and die from the elements. Re below: USA / Arizona. Pick the right county and no code inspections.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Which country/state? Inquiring minds want to know!

duped 3y ago

Those examples sound pretty reasonable, what's the issue?

pixl97 3y ago
They want to be the reason why the laws are created, they don't want to have to follow them.
- trey-jones 3y ago
  I will own this I guess. You are correct to some extent: I don't want to have to follow laws that cause unreasonable expense, when they are created to prevent disaster that I am going to prevent without your oversight. You'll just have to take my word for it: my house is better built than any for-profit house you'll find on the market today. It's for me and my family, of course I would make sure that it is! The wood that I milled is thicker, heavier, stronger than any Yellawood you'll find. Yet I can't be trusted to recognize a board that shouldn't be used as a joist. I have to higher a professional to look at it's fit for use. Which could legitimately be someone that's never worked with lumber before. You have to admit it's insane. By the way they definitely stamp and sell lumber that I would never use in a joist.
  - duped 3y ago
    > You have to admit it's insane All of this sounds way more reasonable than "trust me bro, I know better" from some random person building a house. That would be insane. > You'll just have to take my word for it Building codes (paid for in blood) are written so we don't have to take your word for it

LeafItAlone 3y ago

Your list of “mind-boggling” items all seem extremely reasonable to me. Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. And having lived in neighborhoods with septic systems most of my life, a little neglect can go a long way. Unless you’re building in the middle of nowhere (far from anything labeled a “city”), there are obligations to those around you. Signed, someone whose neighbors properties have dilapidated buildings in various states of disrepair.

Turing_Machine 3y ago
> Your city and neighbors don’t want to be responsible for or have to deal with your house falling down because it was improperly constructed. Why on earth would the city or the neighbors be "responsible" for that?
- salamanderss 3y ago
  They usually aren't it's an argument used to scare people into making housing stock replenishment more expensive and lock in property values. I'm building a house now. I sent the county... A picture of a square on a map. No plans no inspections nothing. Fuck all that. I build based on what seems reasonable after a cool Busch Light and then I just do it without asking permission from anybody. Half my county did the same. It's not rocket science, and the world here hasn't fallen apart or burned down. But you will be told the opposite to get locked into expensive contractors and corrupt inspectors and the cash extracting nightmare licensing and permitting systems that surround that. And before anybody gets too excited... this is all 100% legal if you pick the right spot.
- brewdad 3y ago
  When my neighbor's house fails and causes damage to my property, I'm not legally "responsible" but I still have to deal with a whole lot of negatives. Hence the "or deal with it" part of OP's statement. Far better to reduce the risks by making sure the project isn't being half-assed up front.
- kemayo 3y ago

mywittyname 3y ago

> - You can't build a septic system, you have to use sewer because you're in city limits (later rescinded when they realized they would have to pump my sewage up to the city sewer. You got lucky. Houses with lift stations are a thing. Usually a bunch of houses will go to a common lift station, but that's not always the case. My dad runs a company installing and servicing various sewage treatment solutions and I spent a lot of weekends as a child going to nice houses on service calls because their lift station threw an alarm and it wasn't pumping their sewage.

pixl97 3y ago

Why is number one the most boggling? Not dealing with sewage correctly is a public health hazard. In most places if there is a sanitary sewer hookup you must, by law, connect to it. Now in your particular case they don't have a sewage lift, but if one is ever installed it is likely you will have to connect to it if you ever need to do septic maintenance again. I certainly hope your municipality requires regular inspections of your septic so you're not flowing shit water into the local environment.

aidenn0 3y ago

Your list seems fairly reasonable. I looked into building where I was (because land was surprisingly cheap compared to houses) and was told to allocate 2 years and $250k for permits. A significant chunk of that was paying an architect to respond to the city and resubmit the plans. This was back when most houses were under $1M, and the lots we were looking at were around $200k, so the permits were literally more valuable than the land, and a pretty large fraction of the value of the improvement.