Moving into greenhouse-potting shed first , House later

   When I look at the state of my finances and compare it to all of the plans I've made there's some discrepancy.

    So I've decided to accept the fact that I can't afford to build the house on my property right away. The main reason for this is all the paper cost. They want me to get a geotechnical survey, a building permit, and I'll need an engineer to approve my plans. Without these costs, I could start my house tomorrow. So the parasites will win for now.

    In the frugality section we have a thread on avoiding "churn" which is basically the cost of paperwork and fees of all sorts. But there is no practical way for me to avoid permits since I want to preserve property value and have an asset which is lendable.

    I don't require building permits for garden structures. And I need somewhere that I can call home on the property right away, so I'm going to build a greenhouse with a good-sized "potting shed" built along the north wall. The potting shed will be set up as a little apartment and the greenhouse would be my living room/conservatory. I'll build a rocket stove within the potting shed (to keep the plants warm )and I'll add many other creature comforts not generally found in this sort of building. Nobody is really looking in my area and I can't see anyone having a problem with it.

   I'd like to just build the entire house without telling anybody but this would lead to problems down the road. I'm only 8 miles from the city and I intend to draw customers to the property. Eventually I would be caught and who knows where that would lead.

Hey dale, great insight. So because you want to add more value to your plot, you are required to go through the" paperwork? Permits? " ? It more because you ate close to the city? is there a comprehensive guide to this that you'd recommend?

  When I bought the place I was in an unincorporated zone and I was free to live like a man.

    Some time has passed since then and the city of Naimoli has conquered quite a bit of new territory. Now, I will be dealing with various pencil pushers whose combined building knowledge is unlikely to exceed my own. I include the inspectors in this list, and they're knowledgeable guys.

  So I'll be cooperating to some degree in order to not sabotage myself financially. I will explore all avenues of getting around the rules, including application under the experimental building code, bringing people from the University environmental studies program into the fray and I may seek media attention.

      If anything I want to do is blocked,I'm also not averse to certain types of stunts, but nothing that would get me imprisoned. I'm more likely to do things which are extremely irritating. I'll have a chat with whichever suit is unfortunate enough to draw my file and explain clearly what I intend to do and the lengths I'm willing to go to to achieve my ends.

    I'm creating a de facto public park/bird sanctuary with walking trails, bathrooms and other amenities on a 700 m long stretch of the property. I'll make it clear that should I have trouble, the asset could be withdrawn and that I would advertise exactly why and name the individuals.

    I'm willing to play nice if they are. If not, I'll interfere with election campaigns, make hundreds of phone calls to green advocacy groups etc. I'll probably seek organic certification and join other groups which have media darling status.

    I present very well on camera and in public meetings. My preferred debating style is to allow a lesser intellect to drone on for a time and then when my turn comes, baffle them with mountains of information that I can back up and demonstrate complete knowledge of.

    I'm a huge fan of the tactical style of former American president Lyndon B. Johnson. He used every means at his disposal to achieve his goals. His number one tactic was to find out something hugely embarassing and then to blackmail his opponent. I have a book with transcripts of some of his White House tapes. He passed more legislation that any other president since FDR, and did it in a single term. Because of his take no prisoners approach, he was arguably more important to the civil rights movement than were King, Malcolm X, Farrakhan or any of the other leaders we usually associate with civil rights.

    I plan to exercise the right to live freely on my property,healthy and free of parasites.