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View Full Version : Do all cities have screwy zoning/building rules?



Brian Elfert
05-02-2014, 11:51 PM
I'm looking to buy a home in a semi rural city. Many of the older homes have unpaved driveways. I just found out the city requires driveways be paved if a building permit is taken out. I just don't understand why a city with 1 acre minimum lots and no city sewer is trying to force property owners to pave their driveways. It is a semi rural area and not and a suburb with little tiny lots.

I'm looking at buying a home in this city that needs work. The current owners took out a building permit last year and one condition was that they pave the driveway which never happened although they did the work on the permit. The place needs new windows at a minimum and I don't want to be stuck with a $5000 to $10,000 bill to pave the driveway just to replace the windows.

Do other cities have screwy rules like this?

Andrew Joiner
05-03-2014, 4:54 PM
Yes. I built a new house 11 years ago. I paid about $7k in building permit fees. Part of that was a mandatory $2,500 fee for " future parks". My friend just got permits for a house about 10% more expensive than mine. The rates went way up. He had to pay $18K total and the future parks fee is way up as well. Oh, in the the last 11 years we have one new park. It was funded by voluntary contributions. So there's a lot of money sitting in a "future parks" fund I guess.

Brian Elfert
05-03-2014, 5:35 PM
The city I am looking at buying a home in requires park fees to be paid when a piece of land is made into a subdivision. I don't believe that a parks fee has to be paid for each house. The city does have a quite a few parks so I believe they are using the parks fund appropriately.

Building permit fees are a racket. In the state of Minnesota building permit fees are only supposed to cover actual costs the city incurs to approve the plans, make inspections, and so on. Some growing cities were charging permit fees far in excess of costs incurred and using the excess funds to keep property taxes down. They got their hand slapped for doing this. Many cities lost almost all of their permit revenue due to the recession and laid off a lot of building inspectors. Does the city really incur $4,000 in costs when a home is built? Cities will argue that they need the money to pay for new city services to serve all the new residents, but the state says they can't use permit fees to cover these costs.

Rich Engelhardt
05-03-2014, 5:38 PM
I'm looking at buying a home in this city that needs work. The current owners took out a building permit last year and one condition was that they pave the driveway which never happened although they did the work on the permit. The place needs new windows at a minimum and I don't want to be stuck with a $5000 to $10,000 bill to pave the driveway just to replace the windows.


If the owners really did do something wrong and it's not in the disclosures, then they are the ones on the hook for the cost, not you.
Let your real estate agent know that and make sure it's conveyed to the seller's agent.

I'd discount my offer @ that point by $10 to $15k - and let them know why.

If they balk, walk away. Let someone else have the headache.



Re: permits - - IMHO - a necessary evil. I've seen a lot of trash jobs done and not a small number of them were done by so called "pros", that didn't bother with permits.
( or liability or workman's comp either for that matter).
I have a love/hate relationship with permits.

Andrew Joiner
05-03-2014, 6:45 PM
Building permit fees are a racket.

Don't get me started:eek:

When I built my house I thought 'well the permits are expensive,but at least the city inspectors keep the the subcontractors from doing shoddy work'.

If a government agent approves the work it must be safe, right? Because the city could get sued. Then I did some research.

Actually it's almost impossible to win a court case against a building inspector or the municipality for missing something that causes harm.

In my opinion, the #1 reason for inspections is to be sure the improvements get on the property tax rolls. The belief that a city inspection guarantees the work is done right or to code is a myth.

Brian Elfert
05-03-2014, 8:18 PM
If the owners really did do something wrong and it's not in the disclosures, then they are the ones on the hook for the cost, not you.
Let your real estate agent know that and make sure it's conveyed to the seller's agent.

I'd discount my offer @ that point by $10 to $15k - and let them know why.


I think rather than reduce my offer by $10,000 I would ask that they install the driveway the city required when the building permit was issued. The value of the house would go up with a paved driveway as long as they can't cheap out on it. Now that you mention it I haven't seen the disclosure. I'll email my agent right now. I have an email in to the city to see if the building permit was ever closed or not.

The current owners bought the house just over a year ago for just over half of what they asking for the property now. They did between $5000 and $7,500 in work to the property. It is not a flip as they did nothing inside the house. My realtor thinks it is overpriced by 20% or more.

I still think it is silly that the city is forcing everyone to have paved driveways. A lot of cities are trying to reduce the amount of impervious surface although a gravel driveway isn't much better in that respect.

Brian Elfert
05-03-2014, 8:22 PM
In my opinion, the #1 reason for inspections is to be sure the improvements get on the property tax rolls. The belief that a city inspection guarantees the work is done right or to code is a myth.

I had an electrical inspector come do a rough-in inspection for electrical work I did in four rooms. His inspection lasted less than 60 seconds including signing off. He walked into the area, glanced around once or twice, said it looks like you know what you are doing, and signed the paperwork. He spent more time getting out of his car and coming inside the house than he spent on the inspection.

Matt Meiser
05-03-2014, 10:17 PM
The city of Toledo made it against the law to park a vehicle on an unpaved surface. The previous mayor had people out ticketing people who had unpaved driveways, many for decades before the law. Kind of came to a screeching halt when the newspaper let everyone know that the city was parking city vehicles on gravel lots in several places.

Jim Koepke
05-04-2014, 12:33 AM
Local governments have requirements that may seem strange but someone, somewhere felt they were a good idea.

One I heard about in rural counties of California on new residential building required driveways to either have a loop or a tee with turning radius big enough for a 60 foot fire fighting vehicle to negotiate a U-turn. Sounds odd until there is a wild fire in the area.

On individual properties on minimum one acre lots your paving requirement may have something to do with law enforcement or fire fighter access.

jtk

Andrew Joiner
05-04-2014, 1:06 AM
I still think it is silly that the city is forcing everyone to have paved driveways. A lot of cities are trying to reduce the amount of impervious surface although a gravel driveway isn't much better in that respect.
I live on a dead end gravel street .There's existing houses nearby that have gravel driveways. However the city required me to pave my driveway. They say it's to keep dust down. Of course the property taxes go up for every square foot of pavement you have.

I designed my house to keep the property taxes low and so far I've had good luck. My small concrete drive way is worth the slight extra tax to me now, but it's a silly requirement.

Brian Elfert
05-04-2014, 1:20 AM
Some places have really screwy rules on property taxes. I've heard of people doing strange things with houses to avoid increases in property taxes. Here in Minnesota the property tax rules are pretty straight forward. The house is supposed to be assessed at current market value and property taxes are based on that. It doesn't matter how many bedrooms or any of the other screwy rules in some areas.

A paved driveway should increase the value of the house so I guess property taxes might go up. My home that I have sold has property taxes of $4,800 this year. Houses I am looking at buying mostly have property taxes under $2,000 a year.

Matt Meiser
05-04-2014, 9:17 AM
My home that I have sold has property taxes of $4,800 this year.

Congratulations on the sale!

Andrew Joiner
05-04-2014, 11:29 AM
Before I designed the building we live in I asked my tax assessors what they base the market value on. One assessor said it was the first time anyone's asked that. Basically the more it costs to build in labor and materials the higher the tax. They charge you more if you have a view or waterfront.

I designed a dream home for us without compromise. However knowing the tax rules helped. It was a fun challenge to use creativity to get around the rules and keep my money out of the tax assessors hands every year.
It's an extremely modern open plan house so we weren't bound by traditional design ideas.

Some things I did to save on taxes and have creative freedom:
Cabinets, lofts, and all rooms but the bathroom are unattached. The rooms are built like huge cabinets. The lofts are big platforms on legs. No one but the tax assessor can tell, they look built in like any modern architecture. We use mostly lamps ,not installed light fixtures.

After we built I found this book at the library. A great read and we used a lot of his ideas.


http://www.amazon.com/Your-Low-Tax-Dream-House-Ownership/dp/0942679075 (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Low-Tax-Dream-House-Ownership/dp/0942679075)

Jessica Pierce-LaRose
05-04-2014, 11:45 AM
It's an extremely modern open plan house so we weren't bound by traditional design ideas.

Some things I did to save on taxes and have creative freedom:
Cabinets, lofts, and all rooms but the bathroom are unattached. The rooms are built like huge cabinets. The lofts are big platforms on legs. No one but the tax assessor can tell, they look built in like any modern architecture. We use mostly lamps ,not installed light fixtures.
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That sounds really interesting, Andrew, love to see something like that! So the house is like a giant space, and the rooms sort of exist inside of that? And thus they don't count as "rooms" for the tax purposes? Do the "walls" of the rooms go all the way to the ceiling, or do you have an open space above the rooms?

Jessica Pierce-LaRose
05-04-2014, 11:54 AM
I find the start of this thread funny, because a lot of places in our state, they charge you more for paved areas, because it contributes to runoff into the watershed; in my town, by not having paved areas, you actually end up using less coverage in the zoning calculator, allowing you to like, put a shed or an addition somewhere.

The city is actually trying to get folks to install "watershed friendly" driveways, either using permeable materials, or weird grid systems or pavers or something:

http://www.burlingtonvt.gov/sites/default/files/DPW/Stormwater/Driveways/SW%20Friendly%20Driveways_web_v2.pdf
http://www.burlingtonvt.gov/DPW/Stormwater-Friendly-Driveways

Zoning laws are really wacky here in Burlington, although they're getting better. For a while, the worst part was the rules around historic properties, which limited what you could do to the point of silliness sometimes, and often conflicted with what other zoning departments. One person was told he needed to use a specific type of siding on their house by the historic preservation folks, and then zoning told him he needed to use another kind (of basically visually indistinguishable siding) on the part of the house only a few feet from the next residence for fire safety concerns, and he was stuck in a weird catch-22 limbo. It seems like in the last few years they've really cleaned this up, from what I hear, though.

Brian Elfert
05-04-2014, 12:18 PM
Some things I did to save on taxes and have creative freedom:
Cabinets, lofts, and all rooms but the bathroom are unattached. The rooms are built like huge cabinets. The lofts are big platforms on legs. No one but the tax assessor can tell, they look built in like any modern architecture. We use mostly lamps ,not installed light fixtures.


If the property taxes are based on labor and materials wouldn't it cost a lot to build the house the way you did? We don't have to play those games in Minnesota since property taxes are based on what the house should sell for on the open market. The assessors are not always right on the market value so people will have their house appraised if the assessed value is far enough off. What I sold my house for was about $10,000 off from the assessed value.

Andrew Joiner
05-04-2014, 1:31 PM
If the property taxes are based on labor and materials wouldn't it cost a lot to build the house the way you did?
The property taxes are based on ATTACHED items. Screw a cabinet to wall it's taxed,if it sits on the floor it's furniture. No my house didn't cost any more to build the way I did. It probably cost less than a conventional design. The design's took time but it's fun and I'm retired.

Andrew Joiner
05-04-2014, 1:42 PM
That sounds really interesting, Andrew, love to see something like that! So the house is like a giant space, and the rooms sort of exist inside of that? And thus they don't count as "rooms" for the tax purposes? Do the "walls" of the rooms go all the way to the ceiling, or do you have an open space above the rooms?
Yup. The ceilings are 29' high so none of "rooms"go to the ceiling so far. They could in the future if I build a 3rd story loft. The "rooms" are cubes with there own ceilings, the ceiling is the floor for the 2nd story lofts.
The other great part is we can build rooms and lofts when and if we want them WITHOUT PERMITS! We only had one dressing room/closet at first. Then as grand-kids came we added bed room/cubes.

Brian Elfert
05-04-2014, 1:53 PM
The property taxes are based on ATTACHED items. Screw a cabinet to wall it's taxed,if it sits on the floor it's furniture. No my house didn't cost any more to build the way I did. It probably cost less than a conventional design. The design's took time but it's fun and I'm retired.

Oregon seems to do property taxes differently than Minnesota. If say my kitchen cabinets were not attached I suspect they would still add to the market value and get taxed. It would be unusual for someone to take kitchen cabinets with when they move so the assessor would consider them part of the property.

So it sounds like you house is basically just a giant shell with no attached interior walls. I thought maybe it was made of modules that each had their own exterior. It would be interesting to see some pictures. I'm not sure how practical it would be except for reducing property taxes in your specific case. The no permit thing wouldn't fly here. Legally, if you do anything beyond repainting, or replacing a plumbing/lighting fixture it needs a permit. Technically, even replacing a fixture is probably supposed to have a plumbing or electrical permit.

Mel Fulks
05-04-2014, 2:20 PM
Brian,you reminded us of another option. In Europe free standing cabinets are widely used,and go with the owner when they move.

Brian Ashton
05-04-2014, 2:42 PM
Don't get me started:eek:

When I built my house I thought 'well the permits are expensive,but at least the city inspectors keep the the subcontractors from doing shoddy work'.

If a government agent approves the work it must be safe, right? Because the city could get sued. Then I did some research.

Actually it's almost impossible to win a court case against a building inspector or the municipality for missing something that causes harm.

In my opinion, the #1 reason for inspections is to be sure the improvements get on the property tax rolls. The belief that a city inspection guarantees the work is done right or to code is a myth.

Try living in a country where the inspectors are hired by the builder. You want to see blatantly shoddy workmanship go to queensland.

Andrew Joiner
01-31-2021, 4:49 PM
Oregon seems to do property taxes differently than Minnesota. If say my kitchen cabinets were not attached I suspect they would still add to the market value and get taxed. It would be unusual for someone to take kitchen cabinets with when they move so the assessor would consider them part of the property.

So it sounds like you house is basically just a giant shell with no attached interior walls. I thought maybe it was made of modules that each had their own exterior. It would be interesting to see some pictures. I'm not sure how practical it would be except for reducing property taxes in your specific case. The no permit thing wouldn't fly here. Legally, if you do anything beyond repainting, or replacing a plumbing/lighting fixture it needs a permit. Technically, even replacing a fixture is probably supposed to have a plumbing or electrical permit.

I'm reviving this thread since property taxes came up on a recent thread.
My house was designed and built in 2002. Keeping the taxes low was only a small benefit of the design. It did give us a big property tax advantage till 2019. In 2019 they changed the rules and we get less of an advantage. It now goes by neighborhood mostly. Nicer neighborhoods have to pay more. So no matter how your house is designed or built, there's a minimum assessed value.

Originally I found out the tax rules as part of the fun of designing my dream house and playing the game of working with building officials. The goal was:
1- Build my unusual dream house-- IF the city would give me a permit.
2- Keep recurring costs down with -
A- Low maintenance interior and exterior.
B- Energy efficiency.
3- Maximize views and sunlight.
4- Interior flexibility so we could "remodel" as needed.
5- Low property taxes.
Of course the government can always change the rules of the game.:(

roger wiegand
01-31-2021, 7:26 PM
Our assessments are supposed to be based on "fair market value" of the property. I have to say they do quite well, an actual sale that differs by 10% from the assessed value is very rare. It eliminates most of the gamesmanship of other systems.

John K Jordan
01-31-2021, 7:50 PM
Our assessments are supposed to be based on "fair market value" of the property. I have to say they do quite well, an actual sale that differs by 10% from the assessed value is very rare. It eliminates most of the gamesmanship of other systems.

I'm glad property assessments seem to be reasonable here, too. This is out in a rural area, not in town.

And what really helps if you have some acreage with trees is to apply for the Forestry Greenbelt - a forester walks the land and helps develop a forestry plan. Greenbelt status boils down to don't develop all of the land and try to improve the woods. One incentive to keeping our county green is cutting the property taxes nearly in half.

As for building inspections, for agriculture-related things in this county inspections and permits are not needed. I like that law.

roger wiegand
01-31-2021, 8:30 PM
Having spent a lot of time and even more money cleaning up after un-permitted, un-inspected work I have to say I've developed much warmer feelings for the system. Most of the code makes a lot of sense, and my experience with inspectors is that they can be a valuable partner if cultivated correctly. The guys I've worked with have all been pretty reasonable and competent, sometimes very helpful in getting a contractor to do the right thing.

Funny, here you get credit for not covering your lot with impermeable asphalt.

Jim Becker
01-31-2021, 8:34 PM
Interestingly, the assessment and taxes on a much smaller property we are currently considering is about the same as our current one. Different township; same school district. Slightly less than half the land and not counting the finished basement, a third of the square footage. Code for my current township is a bit clearer because they have references like "setbacks for dummies" rather than a link to the shared code site that's not readable by normal humans. :) :D Not that I'm normal...just ask Professor Dr. SWMBO...

Joe Hendershott
02-01-2021, 7:32 AM
A few years ago we bought a historic mid century house at auction. The utilities had been off for more than 6 months which meant an inspection was needed. The first inspection was from the electrical department. The guy got out of his truck and was already shaking his head as he waked up. Went in the house uninvited and started to walk about telling us how just about everything was not up to code and would need to be redone. He was, without a doubt, the most unpleasant person I had to deal with for a long time. So then my wife was crying about having to ruin everything that was good about the house and I was was ready to show the guy out. after he left I sent an email to the head of the planning department as well as the county CEO. It wasn't 15 minutes that I got a reply from the planning chief letting me know he would come out in the morning. He was a great guy, apologetic and polite. While we needed to do the panel upgrade for our future work, which I did, we never had an issue with not bringing everything else up to code. While having some additional work done a guy told me he had to go above the head of the inspectors about half the time and they seemed unusually harsh with homeowners doing their own work.

Might not be a bad idea to tactfully go the department head to ask about the driveway.

Rob Luter
02-01-2021, 9:41 AM
Relatives built a 2BR Log Cabin on forested acreage in Northern Michigan. This is your basic weekend cabin. They were required by code to add a laundry connection. The inspector wouldn't sign off on the occupancy permit until the added it. There's no room for a washer or dryer, but it has a sweet connection.

Rob Luter
02-01-2021, 9:43 AM
A few years ago we bought a historic mid century house at auction. The utilities had been off for more than 6 months which meant an inspection was needed. The first inspection was from the electrical department. The guy got out of his truck and was already shaking his head as he waked up. Went in the house uninvited and started to walk about telling us how just about everything was not up to code and would need to be redone. He was, without a doubt, the most unpleasant person I had to deal with for a long time. So then my wife was crying about having to ruin everything that was good about the house and I was was ready to show the guy out. after he left I sent an email to the head of the planning department as well as the county CEO. It wasn't 15 minutes that I got a reply from the planning chief letting me know he would come out in the morning. He was a great guy, apologetic and polite. While we needed to do the panel upgrade for our future work, which I did, we never had an issue with not bringing everything else up to code. While having some additional work done a guy told me he had to go above the head of the inspectors about half the time and they seemed unusually harsh with homeowners doing their own work.

Might not be a bad idea to tactfully go the department head to ask about the driveway.

I work in the building products industry and we have a saying. "The difference between God and a building inspector is God does not believe he's a building inspector."

Jim Becker
02-01-2021, 10:16 AM
I work in the building products industry and we have a saying. "The difference between God and a building inspector is God does not believe he's a building inspector."
Back when we were doing our major home addition in 2008, the township still had their own inspector(s) on payroll. The dude assigned to our project arrived on the first day and was yelling at our contractors (using profanity) before even looking at anything or even turning off his pick-em-up truck. He was unbelievable...the backside of certain farm animals came to mind. He also insisted on some things that were not required by code, making the addition so beefy that you could likely park a cement truck on the roof and not do any damage. That also cost us about twenty grand more, too.

Since they and most local townships have moved to using third party inspection companies, things have smoothed over considerably and are more consistent with national code.

Bill Dufour
02-01-2021, 10:41 AM
Berkeley Californa has signs on the borders that it is a nuclear free zone. They forced the campus to get rid of a small nuclear pile in a basement. It was better monitored and less radiation then outside in the sun.
Bil lD

Adam Herman
02-01-2021, 10:52 AM
cost of permits here can be as high as 50 % of project cost depending on project/ sq ft coverage, etc... a million dollar house costs about 250k for permits in the peoples republic of boulder county.

i wanted to buy a shed from a guy i know, 10 x 20 with a loft, real nice deal. the cost of the permit for installing it here would have been about 2 grand. i ended up with 2 144 sq ft sheds because that is the max no permit shed size. they also had my house sqft about 30% higher than actual. finally got that fixed. we were foster parents at the time, so we had county people here all the time and did not want any trouble, thus trying to stay by the book with permits.

if i was in the city limits across the street, the permits would have been about 100 bucks.

roger wiegand
02-01-2021, 2:16 PM
It costs a certain amount of money to run a local government, the sources for that money are limited, pretty much down to taxes, fees, and grants from the state and feds. It seems each municipality comes up with their own formulation of different kinds of taxes, along with fees and whatever they can get someone else to give them to balance the books. Each town seems to decide which kind of tax it hates the most (sales, income, property, etc) and push the burden onto the others. Our neighbors in NH hate income taxes, but seem willing to tolerate huge property tax bills (plus, of course, stiff tolls on anyone driving north across the border). Fees are usually politically easier to raise than general taxes; only a tiny fraction of the electorate pulls a building permit.

Sometimes there are auxiliary goals that push fees and taxes in one direction or another, for example it would not surprise me to learn that the current citizens of Boulder would very much like to limit further development, hence a very high fee for such development represents a market-driven method to implement such a restriction without the perceived-to-be-oppressive prescriptive approach of simply denying new permits.

Because our small town is run by town meeting (everyone in town can show up at the school gym and vote on each line item in the budget) we get to see this played out in great detail. Some individuals hate their water bill, others the dump fees (most thinking that someone else should subsidize their usage). At the end of the day a budget gets passed directly by the citizens and a property tax rate is then set to pay whatever the cost turns out to be. Nevertheless people complain about what "they" are doing to our tax rates.

Thomas McCurnin
02-01-2021, 3:44 PM
Rural areas have a way of becoming urban areas over time, and your city government has made the decision that it would rather have paved driveways, set backs, fences, sewers, and running water rather than your area remaining Dogpatch USA. I’m sure it’s a nice area, but having those accoutrements will make the area more attractive, presentable, and will raise the value and hence the tax base. It’s all about planning for the future or being left behind.

Jim Becker
02-01-2021, 3:57 PM
That's true, Tom. Another factor is also that jurisdictions are tired of getting stuck with things after builders get their money and disappear. (via convenient legal means like dissolving companies, etc.) So they have become more regimented with zoning regulations and enforcement including things like requiring infrastructure be completed before building starts, etc. On-site septic and wells is becoming harder and harder to allow in many areas of the country because of technical problems, so that stuff is reaching out farther into and beyond the 'burbs than ever before.

Perry Hilbert Jr
02-01-2021, 5:59 PM
Our zoning system here is by township or borough, so each of the 70 municipalities in the county have their own zoning law. Most at least adopted a uniform building code. One local township adopted whatever was shoved before them by their solicitor. They passed a zoning law intended for out in the midwest. It makes references to the "Twin Cities Metropolitan Zoning Commission." It also indicates that no one may have a reptile as a pet, unless they first receive a permit from the Game Commission. That's nice, but in Pennsylvania all reptiles are under the jurisdiction of the Fish and Boat commission, and they do not require permits for reptiles unless endangered species. In that same township, a residence may have hens for eggs, but may not have a rooster unless the lot is over 4 acres. Pets are limited to 5 of any combination of adult animals. So you can have 5, but not 6 goldfish, you can have two cats, a dog two hamsters, but then no guppies. A client was cited for having an aviary with 8 Finches in it. So she went around town and wrote the addresses of everyone with a back yard fish pond and basically forced the zoning officer to cite every one that had more then five fish. In a town nest door, a client was cited for putting a small sign for his in the picture window of his house. I read the ordinance. It prohibited exterior signs and banners advertising any business from being on a residentially zones property. I pointed out to the inspector that the sign was indie the house in the window and therefore his ordinance does not apply,. Also that all the large banners and signs in the yard for the Baltimore Ravens, ,Dallas Cowboys, etc are a violation. He said they are sports. I said do they play for free, do they charge admission, do their games get blocked on tv to protect the gate. Do they compete for players. Are the owners in it for charity? He admitted yes. The very next day, all the professional sports team banners and signs were gone Two months later the ordinance was amended.

John K Jordan
02-01-2021, 7:45 PM
... Pets are limited to 5 of any combination of adult animals. ...

Yikes. I have 4 llamas, 2 alpacas, 19 guineas, 17 hens, 4 roosters, 3 horses, 3 mini donkeys, 5 cats, 2 dogs, 15 peafowl, maybe 150,000 adult honey bees, and 1 turkey. Most are supposedly farm animals but to me they are pets and they all have names. (The honeybees are all named Gertrude. :)) I'll try not to move back to Pennsylvania.

JKJ

Bill Dufour
02-01-2021, 10:43 PM
My Aunt in Oregon never quite finished her house in the woods. She had a room with a pool table and the suspended ceiling was missing one panel so it was not finished and it was taxed as under construction. They claimed they lived in the separate garage with one attached bedroom/kitchen/bathroom. That was true for the first year while they built the big house.
Bill D

John K Jordan
02-01-2021, 11:16 PM
My Aunt in Oregon never quite finished her house in the woods. She had a room with a pool table and the suspended ceiling was missing one panel so it was not finished and it was taxed as under construction. They claimed they lived in the separate garage with one attached bedroom/kitchen/bathroom. That was true for the first year while they built the big house.
Bill D

I made a number of trips to Moctezuma in central Mexico to work at a missionary friend's children's ranch.

I noticed that lots of buildings had rebar sticking up somewhere in front. He told me that a building wasn't taxed until it was finished so almost none ever got finished. Even places obviously owned by the few wealthy people had a bit of exposed rebar.

JKJ

Thomas McCurnin
02-01-2021, 11:40 PM
They won't inspect our septic tank in San Bernardino County in our vacation home. Yet, the county charges us an annual inspection fee and issues us a license. I'm pretty rigorous about upkeep, so I rely upon our local town plumber to exceed, not just meet, the county standards for well water quality and septic cleanliness. I doubt the town will ever get sewers and city water.

Mike Henderson
02-02-2021, 12:20 AM
I made a number of trips to Moctezuma in central Mexico to work at a missionary friend's children's ranch.

I noticed that lots of buildings had rebar sticking up somewhere in front. He told me that a building wasn't taxed until it was finished so almost none ever got finished. Even places obviously owned by the few wealthy people had a bit of exposed rebar.

JKJ

I've heard that story in other countries (Egypt, for example). That's so easy to fix that you wonder why they never fix the laws. In the US, you need a certificate of occupancy before you can move in and that completes the project (for new construction). For remodels, if you don't show progress on your project during the course of a year, your permit is cancelled and you have to get a new permit. I expect you would be reassessed based on the work you did do when your permit was cancelled.

Mike

Bill Dufour
02-02-2021, 1:04 AM
To maintain mining rights you have to invest something like $500 a year into the project. This often means some gravel and a pass with a buldozer on the access road. You never have to actually mine anything much less make a profit. For many it is a cheap way to "own" a cabin. Known as a crew bunkhouse/kitchen bathing facilities. Or ancillary mining operations such as repair shop etc. Assay office, materials storage. etc
Bil lD

Jim Koepke
02-02-2021, 2:07 AM
Berkeley Californa has signs on the borders that it is a nuclear free zone. They forced the campus to get rid of a small nuclear pile in a basement. It was better monitored and less radiation then outside in the sun.
Bil lD

If my recollector is working in Berkeley you can not have gas service to new buildings.

Do they really have the small nuclear pile just sitting outside unprotected or did they move it off site?

As far as taxes go, as Roger posted, "It costs a certain amount of money to run a local government."

A million dollar house is going to eat up the time of local inspectors, planners, engineers, police services, fire services and require other resources of the government. There is no free lunch.

One of my neighbors was going to build a house and the cost of permits pushed him into having a prefab instead.

People rave about Oregon having no sales tax. The property taxes are higher on 'stick built' houses than on prefabs. There are a lot of prefabs in the newer homes in Oregon. Not knowing the Oregon law, my knowledge of older houses being grandfathered under the law may be a factor.

In California the property tax on my property was at a low rate under an old tax law known as Prop 13. If the property was sold it would then fall under the new rate unless it was sold to a family member then the tax basis could be transferred. it was possible for a person to transfer the tax benefit usually if they stayed in the same county. All kinds of weird stuff there.

jtk

Joe Hendershott
02-02-2021, 6:49 AM
I work in the building products industry and we have a saying. "The difference between God and a building inspector is God does not believe he's a building inspector."

Amen. That about sums it up.

Alex Zeller
02-02-2021, 8:12 AM
About 15 or so years ago the state changed the rules on septic systems. Before it if you had more than 10 acres you could do whatever you wanted as far as the state was concerned. Other than that we have no permits or zoning. If you want it you can build it. A couple years ago they wanted to change it but the vote clearly showed that people didn't want zoning. The only way the town knows you did something to your property is with photographs. They look at the picture from the last time the listers were at your residence and see if something changed. If a change was made they try to figure out what it's worth. It's not uncommon for people to go years without an increase on their property taxes as the listers would be out in early spring. During mud season a number of the right of ways aren't easily passable without a good 4wd so they just were skipped. I'm not sure if I could live in a place that restricted me to the point where I could only have as many pets as they tell me. With all the wild animals around us eating the bird seed and plants on our land the wife thinks of them as pets. Even the wild turkeys come running up as I fill the bird feeders ready to pounce on any seed that falls on the ground.

Steve Demuth
02-02-2021, 8:56 AM
About 15 or so years ago the state changed the rules on septic systems. Before it if you had more than 10 acres you could do whatever you wanted as far as the state was concerned. Other than that we have no permits or zoning.

I supported the introduction of county zoning in my county, knowing the results would be a combination of real progress on controlling expansion into unsuitable areas (such as flood plains) and some stupid rules. The reality is more disappointing than I imagined. Any big project seems to eventually get a zoning change, and we end up with superstores on flood plains, but small property owners get dinged by overzealous rule making and enforcement anyway. And to top it off, the state prohibits regulation of agricultural land use, so as long as you can figure out how to make your project agricultural, there are barely any rules at all. The state's own rules, e.g., on feeding confinements are laughably lax, so we still have manure pits and lagoons being built willy nilly on our sinkhole studded karst geography. The county is not allowed to tighten those rules, due to prohibition on local regulation of agriculture.

And as for the building code ... my wife and I set out to build a guest cabin on our property. OK, so the book says a second residence can't be more then 600 square feet. I can go with that. Can't have a basement in any form. Why is that? No reason. Just no basement. OK, so we're going to hook our little guest house into our already oversized septic system. Nope. Inspector comes out and says our system, which has been well maintained for 20 years, isn't up to code, despite being oversized for the small original house we built it for. If we touch it, we have to replace it. Ouch, but OK. So let's size a new one for the guest house. Minimum septic system allowed by code is for a three bedroom residence, sized for 6 people. No matter that the code won't let us build a house over 600 square feet with more than one bathroom, we've got to have starter mansion-sized septic system.

So, to meet code, I've got a 600 square foot guest cabin with a 200 amp service, and a 2000 gallon septic tank with a drain field that covers a quarter of one of our small pastures.

And as an added anecdote, Covid came along, so we hardly have any guests. I don't think the septic tank has actually filled to the point that there is any spillage into the drain field yet. At least we won't have to pump the septic tank more than once in my remaining lifetime.

Jim Becker
02-02-2021, 9:05 AM
Yikes. I have 4 llamas, 2 alpacas, 19 guineas, 17 hens, 4 roosters, 3 horses, 3 mini donkeys, 5 cats, 2 dogs, 15 peafowl, maybe 150,000 adult honey bees, and 1 turkey. Most are supposedly farm animals but to me they are pets and they all have names. (The honeybees are all named Gertrude. :)) I'll try not to move back to Pennsylvania.

JKJ
You'd be fine in most of PA... :) There are folks around here that may very sell exceed your menagerie by a magnitude.

Malcolm McLeod
02-02-2021, 9:41 AM
Based on the ‘modern’ posts to this thread, I’m not sure if it’s a tax rant, inspection rant, or a zoning rules rant.... so I’ll stick to the title rant.

There is an old anecdote about it being illegal (still) to keep a mule on the 2nd floor of a structure in Atlanta. Who knew this was a problem?!? .... Screwy rule? Or screwy mule keeper?

Or, move to Houston. They are semi-famous for and very proud of their lack of zoning laws: build a 40-story office in your backyard, or build a tract house in downtown. Whatever stirs your gravy.:eek:

Mike Henderson
02-02-2021, 11:28 AM
I supported the introduction of county zoning in my county, knowing the results would be a combination of real progress on controlling expansion into unsuitable areas (such as flood plains) and some stupid rules. The reality is more disappointing than I imagined. Any big project seems to eventually get a zoning change, and we end up with superstores on flood plains, but small property owners get dinged by overzealous rule making and enforcement anyway. And to top it off, the state prohibits regulation of agricultural land use, so as long as you can figure out how to make your project agricultural, there are barely any rules at all. The state's own rules, e.g., on feeding confinements are laughably lax, so we still have manure pits and lagoons being built willy nilly on our sinkhole studded karst geography. The county is not allowed to tighten those rules, due to prohibition on local regulation of agriculture.

And as for the building code ... my wife and I set out to build a guest cabin on our property. OK, so the book says a second residence can't be more then 600 square feet. I can go with that. Can't have a basement in any form. Why is that? No reason. Just no basement. OK, so we're going to hook our little guest house into our already oversized septic system. Nope. Inspector comes out and says our system, which has been well maintained for 20 years, isn't up to code, despite being oversized for the small original house we built it for. If we touch it, we have to replace it. Ouch, but OK. So let's size a new one for the guest house. Minimum septic system allowed by code is for a three bedroom residence, sized for 6 people. No matter that the code won't let us build a house over 600 square feet with more than one bathroom, we've got to have starter mansion-sized septic system.

So, to meet code, I've got a 600 square foot guest cabin with a 200 amp service, and a 2000 gallon septic tank with a drain field that covers a quarter of one of our small pastures.

And as an added anecdote, Covid came along, so we hardly have any guests. I don't think the septic tank has actually filled to the point that there is any spillage into the drain field yet. At least we won't have to pump the septic tank more than once in my remaining lifetime.

What you might have tried is to make some kind of connection between your existing house and the guest house. Then it would be considered an extension of the existing structure. People do that here to get past the size limitations. You don't have to have a passage for people between the two houses, just have them mechanically connected. One house I know of has a pergola type thing connecting the two units. It isn't even closed in but the city accepted the new unit as an extension of the existing structure.

Mike

Steve Demuth
02-02-2021, 1:07 PM
What you might have tried to to make some kind of connection between your existing house and the guest house. Then it would be considered an extension of the existing structure. People do that here to get past the size limitations. You don't have to have a passage for people between the two houses, just have them mechanically connected. One house I know of has a pergola type thing connecting the two units. It isn't even closed in but the city accepted the new unit as an extension of the existing structure.

Mike

We definitely looked at that. Poor (or maybe inspired, depending on what you want from your house) site planning on my part 40 years ago made it not an option.

Alex Zeller
02-02-2021, 6:26 PM
Would this be one or two pets under some of these tough zoning laws?
451110

Mike Henderson
02-02-2021, 11:20 PM
Would this be one or two pets under some of these tough zoning laws?
451110

You should have invited him in. Poor little fellow looks cold:)

Mike

Rob Luter
02-03-2021, 3:25 PM
I supported the introduction of county zoning in my county, knowing the results would be a combination of real progress on controlling expansion into unsuitable areas (such as flood plains) and some stupid rules. The reality is more disappointing than I imagined. Any big project seems to eventually get a zoning change, and we end up with superstores on flood plains, but small property owners get dinged by overzealous rule making and enforcement anyway. And to top it off, the state prohibits regulation of agricultural land use, so as long as you can figure out how to make your project agricultural, there are barely any rules at all. The state's own rules, e.g., on feeding confinements are laughably lax, so we still have manure pits and lagoons being built willy nilly on our sinkhole studded karst geography. The county is not allowed to tighten those rules, due to prohibition on local regulation of agriculture.

And as for the building code ... my wife and I set out to build a guest cabin on our property. OK, so the book says a second residence can't be more then 600 square feet. I can go with that. Can't have a basement in any form. Why is that? No reason. Just no basement. OK, so we're going to hook our little guest house into our already oversized septic system. Nope. Inspector comes out and says our system, which has been well maintained for 20 years, isn't up to code, despite being oversized for the small original house we built it for. If we touch it, we have to replace it. Ouch, but OK. So let's size a new one for the guest house. Minimum septic system allowed by code is for a three bedroom residence, sized for 6 people. No matter that the code won't let us build a house over 600 square feet with more than one bathroom, we've got to have starter mansion-sized septic system.

So, to meet code, I've got a 600 square foot guest cabin with a 200 amp service, and a 2000 gallon septic tank with a drain field that covers a quarter of one of our small pastures.

And as an added anecdote, Covid came along, so we hardly have any guests. I don't think the septic tank has actually filled to the point that there is any spillage into the drain field yet. At least we won't have to pump the septic tank more than once in my remaining lifetime.

I'll bet they require a laundry hook up too.

Bruce Wrenn
02-03-2021, 4:16 PM
Zoning rules follow the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Let a developer wave big bucks (taxes) in front of zoning board, and everything is now okay. Doesn't matter if for the last fifty years, it was NO way, Hosea.

Wade Lippman
02-03-2021, 5:01 PM
My rural area is exactly the opposite. The lake lots are typically between 1/8th and 1/4rd acre and cannot have anything exceeding 25% fill, including paved driveways. Since is it tough to put any kind of house on a quarter of 1/8th acre lot many have gravel driveways. The original owner of my house got his permit for a gravel driveway and then paved it. The town ordered him to rip is out. They compromised on a permeable block driveway.

Jim Becker
02-03-2021, 7:35 PM
Zoning rules follow the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Let a developer wave big bucks (taxes) in front of zoning board, and everything is now okay. Doesn't matter if for the last fifty years, it was NO way, Hosea.

That's actually not the case in many areas because jurisdictions got tired of getting stuck for the bill after the developers are gone. I can tell you that developers have a much larger challenge around here for sure.

roger wiegand
02-04-2021, 7:35 AM
Zoning rules follow the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. Let a developer wave big bucks (taxes) in front of zoning board, and everything is now okay. Doesn't matter if for the last fifty years, it was NO way, Hosea.

You should come visit one of our zoning board meetings some time! They turn down most requests for variances, permitting for anything other than a single family house takes 3-5 years of hearings, back-and-forth, and more often than not, lawsuits. The only way more dense developments get built is because of the state law that supersedes local zoning and other restrictive rules until the town has a certain fraction of affordable housing. (the definition of affordable being laughable-- last I heard the cutoff for an "affordable" house was something like $375K). The ZBA is comprised of elected, unpaid folks from the town who take their mandate to inhibit change very seriously. They believe (correctly I think) that new housing results in new costs for the town, particularly for schools, that are not fully recouped by the taxes on that housing. Commercial development is almost completely out of the question.

Brian Elfert
02-04-2021, 10:57 AM
That's actually not the case in many areas because jurisdictions got tired of getting stuck for the bill after the developers are gone. I can tell you that developers have a much larger challenge around here for sure.

The city here doesn't really become responsible for much here when a new development is built. The developer is responsible for building streets with curbs and storm sewers to city specs. There is no city water or sewer. There are older developments in the city that are still gravel, but paved streets have been required for probably 30 years.

The city takes over the streets once the development is finished. The city covers all road maintenance through property taxes the city says cost each property an average of about $60 a year. The city now requires if you take out a building permit (windows/siding/roofing/electrical are exceptions) that you install a paved driveway if you don't have one. The driveway requirement is because dirt at the edge of the paved road often erodes away if there is no curb which damages the edge of the road. In my case, the city only made me pave the first 100 feet. I now wish I would have spent the extra $5,000 or so to pave the rest.

I have no sense that the city is losing money on new developments. The city council pinches pennies to the max and the city property taxes are lowest in the metro area. The council has said that they won't increase city spending just because there are a lot of new developments increasing the property tax revenue coming in.

Jim Becker
02-04-2021, 12:43 PM
Brian, that's true that the developer is responsible for those things. What's changed in recent years is that in many jurisdictions, the developers have to complete that work, outside of the top, finish layer of asphalt on the roadways before they can start building homes. Water, sewer (storm and residence), streets, developer provisions for communications infrastructure, street lights and signs, etc., all have to be in place from the beginning. Why? Because it became popular for developers to conveniently "go out of business" after selling and building the last home and leaving the local jurisdiction in the lurch to finish up the infrastructure.

Brian Elfert
02-04-2021, 5:20 PM
The city here must require everything to be done before construction starts because I see a lot of streets with empty lots, but the cable, telephone, electric, and everything else is already installed. Of course, how could they sell any of the houses without utilities already installed? What part were developers skipping out on?

My parents bought a house in 1973 or 1974 in a new development. The development had gravel roads and septic/wells. Within a few years the city came through and put in city water and sewer along with a paved road with curbs. I have no idea why the work wasn't done when the development was built. It probably cost my parents a large assessment for the work.

andrew whicker
02-04-2021, 11:42 PM
I lived in Houston for a few years and I loved the lack of zoning (which they actually do have in placed thru deeds). It was fun having a normal old feeling neighborhood with an awesome coffee shop or bar or brewery right in the middle. I hate (and I mean loathe) strip areas with massive parking lots and all the same 10 restaurants, stores, etc. Ugh. Another Chilis. Awesome. So exciting.

Now I live in Ogden UT and I have to say, the zoning / permitting people here are pretty good. I haven't had too much trouble. We still have a lot of stupid rules (like how many unrelated people can live in one house), but overall we have it pretty good.

Sucks about the paved driveway thing. What happens if you don't comply? We had a guy do some unpermitted concrete work on his driveway, he got threatened for a bit, then the city quit bothering him because really, who cares? He did a good job.

Alex Zeller
02-06-2021, 2:25 PM
I can remember when the boss came back from a zoning meeting shaking his head. This was in the large progressive city. He wanted to put up new siding on his building and asked to do cedar. One of the zoning board members said "there's too many people using cedar but pine would be ok". Another one said they would approve it but the boards would need to be stained the color of cedar. So he bought cedar siding. When they tried to stop him he said "I'm using pine, cedar is a pine tree that also meets your requirement that it be cedar color". But that's the problem with zoning boards. Most often they are just everyday average people. Some of their decisions are based off of fact like the size of a septic system for the number of bedrooms in a house while others have no basis is reality what so ever.