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OP, you can find exactly what you want in the outskirts of Tijuana. Cheaply constructed housing, no building codes, certainly not more than a couple hundred dollars to construct.
Now that your needs have been taken care of, I'm perfectly happy to have building codes stop a pig farm from moving in right next door to my house. Or a strip club, which I suppose is just another type of pig farm.
Building codes and neighborhood restrictions make owning a home in some areas very cost prohibitive. With all of the minimum building size requirements, inspections, and overhead, a small family home can cost well over 100K, but it doesn't really cost that much to build a livable shelter. A small shanty could be built for a single person or couple for only a few hundred dollars. A nicer small home without wiring or plumbing could be built for only a few thousand. Older mobile homes and modular homes, which look as good as regular houses, can be purchased for under 10K in some areas. Why don't we just take the building restrictions off of the land?
Do you want a large, noisy factory that pollutes the air and makes it hard to breathe to be built right behind your house?
I am all for easing minimum lot, house, and room sizes, but some zoning laws are a good thing.
Then we have the thread over in House where the person and her husband live in a garage loft with no running water so they dump their 5 gallon buckets of night soil off the porch.
Do you want a large, noisy factory that pollutes the air and makes it hard to breathe to be built right behind your house?
I am all for easing minimum lot, house, and room sizes, but some zoning laws are a good thing.
No! That would completely defeat my purpose for wanting to establish a green living community. In fact, I think I could live with factories being required to find much cleaner ways to produce their products. That's a very good point.
Then we have the thread over in House where the person and her husband live in a garage loft with no running water so they dump their 5 gallon buckets of night soil off the porch.
Well, that's a little gross, and I think that would enter squatter territory, but don't people use common sense? Do we ever stop and think, "hey, this law might be here for a good reason, like preventing me from making myself and my neighbors really sick?" There are some laws, though, that are too strict and were probably just created to help contractors and builders make more money. I'm all for laws that benefit people, but we need to be able to tell the difference. A law that tells me I can't live like a pig and leave my trash all over the backyard makes sense. A law that tells me I can't be frugal by building smaller and using safe cheap alternative systems does not, though.
In urban and suburban areas the cost of the house is usually dictated by the cost of the land, not size requirements or building codes.
I know a lot of HOAs have minimum price restrictions (but that's because many are built by the same builder/group of builders) but contractors and builders don't have much input into developing the codes. Engineers and architects do, though.
If you google photos of the earthquake in Haiti, you can see what no building codes gets you.
And the tragedy at Bhopal, India shows you what no zoning regulations get you.
Amending the building codes and zoning regulation to allow safe forms of alternate construction and smaller house sizes is fine, but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Well, that's a little gross, and I think that would enter squatter territory, but don't people use common sense? Do we ever stop and think, "hey, this law might be here for a good reason, like preventing me from making myself and my neighbors really sick?" There are some laws, though, that are too strict and were probably just created to help contractors and builders make more money. I'm all for laws that benefit people, but we need to be able to tell the difference. A law that tells me I can't live like a pig and leave my trash all over the backyard makes sense. A law that tells me I can't be frugal by building smaller and using safe cheap alternative systems does not, though.
The problem is that people don't have commonsense in those cases. The other issue that I have seen is that the electricians, plumbers, etc. get on the commissions and pass regulations that put more money in their pockets while the towns people don't realize it is happening until too late. There should be some restrictions but it is over-the-top anymore. I know of one county in Kansas that does not have building codes and have heard there are others here and in other states. Keep in mind that most cities do have building codes within the counties that don't have codes/zoning. Like everything else, it was a good idea that has been taken too far.
There are now places and others that have the desire that require a house be brought up to code before it can be sold. Can you imagine what that means for people living in older houses built early in the last century? I can, we have owned 3.
The problem is that people don't have commonsense in those cases. The other issue that I have seen is that the electricians, plumbers, etc. get on the commissions and pass regulations that put more money in their pockets while the towns people don't realize it is happening until too late. There should be some restrictions but it is over-the-top anymore. I know of one county in Kansas that does not have building codes and have heard there are others here and in other states. Keep in mind that most cities do have building codes within the counties that don't have codes/zoning. Like everything else, it was a good idea that has been taken too far.
There are now places and others that have the desire that require a house be brought up to code before it can be sold. Can you imagine what that means for people living in older houses built early in the last century? I can, we have owned 3.
They're perhaps making it so that families cannot continue to live in the same house. The mortgage gets paid, the house ceases to be "up to code," repairs have to be made, additions have to be built, the cycle of debt starts all over again. True home ownership is being placed out of reach for most people.
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