America's Return to Independence

In the fall of 2006, my wife and I bought the Old Washington School in Esko, MN. No one would finance this purchase, so we took the funds from our retirement plans. The zoning board and visitors attending the meetings grilled us for about four hours about our plans. They told us what we were restricted from doing, and wanted to know what our five year plan was. Some people at the meeting wanted assurances that no troubled individuals would be there, that there were no recreational facilities, no automotive, … Some individuals, including one board member, wanted us to submit five year plans for the project as well proof of income and ability. By the end of the meeting one of the neighbors threatened to sue us if we didn’t pay for half the cost of a new fence between properties. Her distrust in the sewer system also brought her threat of water monitoring. After a lengthy discussion on the gym, I threatened to withdraw our purchase request if they kept to their demand that the gym not be ...

The building codes are overly restrictive, time-consuming, and costly. Many of the requirements are simply nuisances and provide no benefit of any kind. By the time all of the required professionals are paid, the idea of making money from your venture is greatly diminished. New constructions and many renovations require structural engineers, master plumbers, master electricians, and architects to complete. You will end up spending thousands for designs/plans, that go to zoning boards and inspectors, who review them before issuing a permit. In my own personal case, the building permit itself took two months to get after all of the required paperwork was submitted. This kind of delay can kill a project by itself. Too many people equates to a lot of delay. Projects should be able to proceed in part so as to eliminate delays. It's allowable in the code, but the option is the inspectors'. Unfortunately, we had a building inspector who was only interested in delaying the proj...