A bit like I wanted to put up a single 20x10 carport........needed professional town planning costing $2500,with an extra $600 council planning application fee,then needed a $600 licensed building surveyor to approve it,further council lodgement fee for the approved plans ,all for a carport costing $700......BS gone mad.......so I started with a shade cover,(legal),converted that to a rainproof cover,then put up the carport under the shade cover.Everthing outdoors is monitored by satellite pictures,and inspectors will arrive next day if you just put one up,and issue penalties and a demolition notice....Insanity or extortion?
Same here, Northern Virginia. Possible difference that I (anyone on Earth or in orbit, really) can view many years worth of the rather good and very frequent aerial shots of my own property (or anyone else's property) online.
We even need a permit for a solar panel, roof OR ground mounted. But not for a skylight. Permit is required for a deck, but not for a gazebo - with a deck under it. No permit required for a gardening/storage type shed so long as 150 SF or under and temporary/portable. They DO rent some HUGE forklifts just down the road, so.. and "Oh, BTW" 150 SF "footprint" or under is OK even if it is two-storeys
tall. Not always a good idea in an area subject to air-mass thunderstorms and high winds - often, the odd mini-tornado - once in a while.
Mind.. State of Wisconsin, cheese an economic mainstay, there WAS, perhaps still IS an ordnance that required restaurants to serve a slice of cheese with any order of apple pie.
Fortunately, I had first visited Australia in an era when a "fully licensed restaurant" would plunk
down a sandwich not ordered when you ordered an ignorant beer. And charge for it. Of course. We had been warned not to EAT of it unless we HAD ordered a sandwich. The ones on the guard roster may have been on their fifteenth patron, that day.
To the good, other regulations long on the books as to how, or how often, a wife was, or was not, meant to be horsewhipped have largely been left unenforced.
At least since wimmin' adopted the use of aspirin for contraception.
Meant to clench the aspirin tablet between the knees, and not let go of it, y'see.
That part at least makes life more interesting. Guess regulations are a tad whimsical, after all?
Go figure.