Do all cities have screwy zoning/building rules?

[andrew whicker]

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]

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.