With totalitarian laws like all civil rights laws even the upper classes are scared of all government employees, our first Amendment freedoms including our freedom of association has been suspended.
I built a home for a construction defects attorney in 1978, in the 90s he won the biggest construction defects case ever, $19 million against the architects and contractors who designed and built a condo project, they installed the windows with caulking, hardly a code violation, in fact in compliance with the manufacturers' installation instructions, of course we all know sealants last an average of 7 years before needing replacement.
In 2003 I remodeled the kitchen and the city drove the costs up considerably, no problem. In 2005 he wanted me to add a 200 square foot master bath on to the home, I told him that a home with glass walls like he had couldn't be built anymore without a steel frame, it would cost about $200,000, he said go ahead but don't hire the original architect, find the name of the architect who has the best track record with his city. After a couple of years of neighborhood meetings, design review meetings, etc, and the architect adding a lot of additional stuff that he was willing to pay for, the city informed me that I needed a landscape architect to design a couple of acre hillside on the back of his house, the city never would accept the submitted designs but suggested that I hire their recommended landscape architect, so I did. We had a final planning commission meeting, the architect and landscape architect again made their Power Point presentation with everything approved by staff and the Design Review Commission, one of the commissioners said she wanted a 50 year bond for $1 million to guarantee that the landscaping would be watered and maintained, or the city would take over and maintain it with their bond monies. He asked me how much now, I said we were probably at half a million for the remodeling, but I had no idea the cost of the landscaping and irrigation, but assume a few hundred thousand more, he said okay. He called the next morning and said to forget the whole thing, building a park for the ****ing city was bad enough, but spending a fortune maintaining a park for the city was too much.
A month ago he called back saying that he had hired another architect to remodel the existing bath, the plans called for no structural changes, can I do it without a permit? I pointed out disclosure requirements at sale and he intends to retire in a couple of years, he said no problem he would disclose when he sold, that the architect recommended that he not get a permit, she told him that if I got permit the Green Code would make him change plumbing fixtures all over the house to those that little water comes out of, that they will make him get a HERS Rater in and probably replace both furnaces and all ducting in the home.
As far as the public is concerned, lower and upper socioeconomic classes, our government has become totalitarian, time for the
. BTW, this guy was a Captain in the Marine Corps who served two tours of duty in Viet Nam leading his troops out of helicopters to preserve our freedoms.
