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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.9.37] on Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 10:33:35 :
In Reply to: Small town, small minded bureaucrat posted by Tim Holloway [69.54.28.229] on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 19:00:24 :
Everybody's already given you lots of advice and sympathy, but there are two things I haven't heard yet.
One: talk to the mayor. In a town of 1800 people, you probably know him, and can just go to his house or business. If the P&Z chairman is a petty, power-tripping kind of guy, he's probably gotten a lot of other people mad at the mayor over the years, and the mayor will be glad for a chance to pull rank. In a small town, P&Z is usually the only "bureaucrat" there is. It sounds like the P&Z guy just wants to make sure you push a lot of paper, but isn't going to deny you. The way you work that within the system is you push his paper, you go to his next P&Z meeting, and he rubber-stamps it. The mayor tells him that's how it needs to turn out, and he still gets to think he won because he got you to push his paper.
Second, you could make discrete inquiries and find out what really happens if you build without a permit. Very often, the answer is that you get a nasty letter, and nothing else. They can threaten to deny you a certificate of occupancy and a "safe wiring" sticker, but since it's just an addition to the garage, and not a dwelling, and you can wire it from the garage, that doesn't matter. They can put a nasty letter in your file saying you built something without a permit, which can be an issue if you try to get a loan, but so long as you don't try to mortgage the place, that's irrelevant.
There are some jurisdictions that would tear your structure down and lien you for doing it, but the vast majority are nowhere near that serious. Usually, building officials have more bark the bite. If you make it clear that you intend to built it no matter what, that it meets the zoning in terms of setbacks and height, that the neighbors don't mind, and that you're willing to be taxed on it, and that you will pay them some (modest) money (for a building permit but not for environmental studies), and you're willing to fill out their forms and give them a month to rubber-stamp them and let them pretend to have authority over you, that will probably look okay to the P&Z guy in most jurisdictions.
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