* * * * * Leviathan > Before you could get a building permit, however, you had to be approved by > the Zoning Authority. And Zoning—citing FEMA (Federal Emergency Management > Agency) regulations—would force you to bring the house "up to code," which > in many cases meant elevating the house by several feet. Now, elevating > your house is very expensive and time consuming—not because of the actual > raising, which takes just a day or two, but because of the required > permits. > > Kafka would have liked the zoning folks. There also is a limit on how high > in the sky your house can be. That calculation seems to be a state secret, > but it can easily happen that raising your house violates the height > requirement. Which means that you can't raise the house that you must raise > if you want to repair it. Got that? > “Roger Kimball: This Metamorphosis Will Require a Permit [1]” Somehow, I get the feeling that we've reached peak government. [1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014241278873240817045782377225768897 Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org .