In other words permit rules are bad when they stop you from doing improvements you like (fence repair), but good when they stop your neighbor from turning a single home into a duplex.

Isn't it a reasonable expectation for city and suburb dwellers that when you affect your neighbors, you might have to get permission? And when your interest is greater than their inconvenience, that you should be granted permission? And that authority should be an expert at it and impartial?

> but good when they stop your neighbor from turning a single home into a duplex.

I wasn't talking at all about what the neighboring plot does. The parent was making the claim that when you 'own' you can do whatever you want with your land which is far from the truth.

Look, I have no beef with people who want to live in high density spaces. That's totally cool(and more power to them) however in our case we had retired neighbors all up in our business(since they had nothing better to do) and city codes dictating exactly what we can do with our land.

Unless you research extensively before you buy(see beekeeping above) it's very easy for your neighbors to make your life a living hell after you buy your house(see also HoAs).

In my town, extremely rich people or banks never seem to have problems getting the necessary permits and even exceptions.

The cops will even close a major street for the food catering trucks for the private parties they throw on public lands and in public buildings.

On a side note: Can we talk about fence height restrictions? Ain't that some bullshit?

eh, a shitty neighbor can make for an easy case on fence restrictions. Its one thing if you have a legitimate reason to put a high fence up, but removing all restrictions would make it really easy for a neighbor to fuck someone over. Say your neighbor is on your south side and puts up a fence that blocks a lot of sunlight to your land, now your garden is useless or you have to spend more money on lighting. Another example, though not for height, would be putting a fence up along your shared driveway up to the street, now theyve made it more dangerous for you to just get out of your house onto the road

My dad solved that by buying the land in front of his house so that someone couldn't build and block his view.

I get that people want it all but for example. Friend bought 26th floor corner apartment in a 32 story buiding with amazing view. 2 years later someone built another 32 story building next door blocking 30% of his view. Did he have some kind of right to prevent that? Another friend bought a lot and had a house built on it in a downtown-ish area. All houses in the area have no yard, at most they have a backyard porch big enough for a couple of chairs. His house now blocks most of the sunlight into at least one of the houses around his lot. His neighbor complains. If she wanted not to be blocked she really needed to by the land.

I don't see any other reasonable solution to these types of problems. The fence seems like yet another where the owner of the land should be able to build the tall fence. I say that as well as my mom used to sunbath topless in our backyard as a kid. She mostly took advantage of the fact she didn't expect anyone to look over the fence but the fence was only about 7ft high and houses around us all 1 story tall.

But...Freedom!