[Porsche-O-Phile]

Welcome to Kalifornia.

If you ever want, I can bore you for literally HOURS over a beer or two regarding the gymnastics and gyrations that architects need to go through trying to keep:

- the owner happy
- the developer happy
- the city planning commission happy
- the neighborhood council happy
- the fire department happy
- the police department happy
- the water reclamation districts happy
- the inspectors happy
- the general contractors happy

etc. etc. etc.

It's all a balancing act. By the time you get done, there's very little latitude in anything. "Design" was stripped away from the architect years ago - for the most part anyway (there are still those occasional "golden" projects that show up, but they're rare).

Planners are tricky - a lot of them are great and don't get into "micromanaging" the design, they just want to ensure general contextual appropriateness with the neighborhood and overall City plan, but there are a few (well, more than a few) that are Grade-A arseholez. "Wanna-be architects" we call them. Most aren't, but some are and will get into everything down to the color of your steel, above the ceiling on the inside of a building (no, I'm not making that one up).

Best of luck to you.