Building an addition to your house, some cities better than others?. (San Jose: apartment, houses)

[PenguinSix]

I've not moved yet but am trying to figure out a way to financially afford a potential relocation to Silicon Valley in the next year or so. I have a young family with kids able to share a nursery and whatnot, but as the family grows I'm certain that we'll need a few extra rooms or something a bit bigger than what I can currently afford now in some parts.

As I'm looking at different cities between San Jose and Palo Alto (yea, a bit broad) are there some places that are worse than others for adding on to your house? Assuming I had room and the financing of course, are there some cities where the red tape and/or community activists would be more opposed to building than others?

[zitsky]

Your question is way too generic, but consider this: there have been recent cases of owners not getting permission to rebuilt/modify houses. There was a house in Mountain View near Palo Alto Ave/California Ave whose owners wanted to renovate to allow their son in a wheel chair to get around easier. That renovation request was denied. I still have a property in Mountain View that I might want to modify. I already know some of the rules. They generally don't allow you to add on to a garage to make an apartment/in-law unit. When I put in a sliding glass door on the back of my garage/office I had to get a permit from the city of MV.

Maybe cities like Fremont, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, San Jose would have more relaxed rules about redevelopment.