You seem to have rose-tinted spectacles for an earlier time, in which there is no 'infringement of property rights'. Yet, no such time really existed since the

You seem to have rose-tinted spectacles for an earlier time, in which there is no 'infringement of property rights'. Yet, no such time really existed since the Norman Conquest at the latest. Contemporary to when the first building regulations were invented in the middle ages, we had everything from socage to slavery: so yes, property rights were rather strong if you were lucky to be one of the 0.1% with some aristocratic background. I would posit that the real tragedy is the inclosure Acts, which in a couple of decades undid centuries of social progress away from feudalism towards community-focused common land use, which was not only an efficient system but also a fair one.