[JMPRO]

I know someone that got a property in Laguna Beach Ca. in an estate settlement. He decided to build a new house ,actually a major remodel on the old one. He has been designing restaurant interiors for years and knows everything about designing the inside and out of a building. Even though he can do all the drawing and design himself he is not certified so he hired a licensed architect to do all the drawing for pulling permits and such. Here is the rub, all of the drawings including the landscape design have to be submitted for community approval. You have a community meeting and everyone that cares get to come in and pick your plans apart. This is not a gated community and there is no community association but if some snob doesn't like something about your plan they can shoot it down.
As some of you may know Laguna Beach Ca. is a artsy-fartsy town so they don't want someone to build a house that looks like a VW bus or a giant vagina so I can understand there needs to be some guidelines but this guy knows how to design a very nice home and some of you have probably dined at some of the restaurants he designed and for Joe Blow the Persian rug dealer that lives down the street to have any say in how the house is designed is a joke. In the first meeting someone didn't like the window style he chose, in the second meeting they shot down his landscape plans. He now has to revise his landscape plans at a cost of several hundred dollars and resubmit again at a cost $200.00. I saw the first plans and the design was top drawer.
If it were me I think I would just show the City and its inhabitants my middle digit and give them a big" Kiss My Ass" on the way out but he is being much more civilized than I and trying to work it out with them. I think some of the city governments and these community action groupes have gotten way too much power and are turning into little power mongers that want to controll everything.
Jerry