Sweating the Small Stuff: When Simple Home Projects Become Permitting Nightmares

Happy Tuesday — this week’s edition of Rent Free looks at how seemingly minor rules and ad hoc permitting demands can make small, practical housing projects prohibitively difficult. While large-scale reforms to increase housing supply are crucial, the daily reality for homeowners often comes down to whether they can add a bathroom, convert a garage, or paint a mural without getting mired in bureaucracy.

Garage Conversion Stymied by Permit Uncertainty

Baltimore County homeowner Marly Milic wanted to convert a detached garage into a livable suite for her mother-in-law. The construction was straightforward, but adding a bathroom triggered months of confusing and obstructive exchanges with county staff. Officials repeatedly demanded in-person visits and refused to provide clear, on-the-record guidance about what approvals were required.

County staff eventually told Milic that a single additional bathroom would classify the project as an "accessory apartment," forcing her to seek zoning-board approval and to hire a lawyer and a structural engineer. Any permit would be temporary — renewable every two years — and subject to an owner-occupancy requirement that would compel Milic to certify that her mother-in-law lived there rent-free and notify the county of any change. Milic described that requirement as intrusive: "They're saying when your mom dies, you have to tell us."

Maryland did pass a law this year requiring counties to permit accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on single-family lots, but local jurisdictions do not have to update their rules until October 2026. Even when state law allows ADUs, local conditions and ambiguous enforcement can make them impractical. Tom Coale, a Maryland land-use attorney, recommends that counties publish simple, cookie-cutter checklists so homeowners know exactly what they must do to build ADUs in practice.

Miami: Demands For Front-Yard Land And A Constitutional Challenge

The limits of what local governments can demand in the permitting process are shaped by U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) and Dolan v. City of Tigard, which bar governments from using permits to extract property unless the condition is directly tied to mitigating a project’s impacts.

Despite those precedents, the city of Miami has for years asked homeowners to dedicate portions of their front yards to the city as a condition of obtaining building permits for simple home expansions. Homeowner Chad Trausch was told to deed roughly half his yard to the city to get permission for a two-bedroom, two-bath addition. Trausch is now suing, alleging the city's demands amount to the kind of coercion prohibited by Nollan and Dolan. The Institute for Justice, which represents Trausch, estimates the city has asked hundreds of homeowners for land and that roughly 1,000 more could face similar demands if they apply for permits today.

The city says the dedications are intended to expand the public right-of-way, which normally would require purchase or eminent domain with compensation. Trausch’s complaint argues Miami is attempting to obtain that land for free through the permitting process — a use of permit leverage that legal precedent forbids.

Mural Fight: Free Speech, Signs, And Small Business

Smaller disputes can also involve free-speech issues. In Salina, Kansas, Steve Howard, owner of The Cozy Inn, was told in 2023 to stop painting a burger-themed mural on his restaurant because officials treated the image as a regulated sign. With help from the Kansas chapter of the Institute for Justice, Howard sued and last month a U.S. District Judge for the District of Kansas, Toby Crouse, ruled in his favor, finding the town’s action to be a content-based restriction on speech.

Similar cases have arisen elsewhere: Arlington, Virginia, ordered pizza murals covered up, and a donut shop in Conway, New Hampshire, successfully challenged an order to hide its donut-themed mural. Allowing businesses to use murals to reflect what they sell may not transform productivity measures, but it reduces regulatory arbitrariness and adds character to neighborhoods.

Why The Small Stuff Matters

These three episodes — a stalled garage conversion, demands for yard dedications, and a mural censorship dispute — show how permitting opacity, overlapping rules, and ad hoc bureaucratic power can impose real costs on ordinary people. Fixing the big-picture housing shortage requires major reforms, but making modest homeowner projects actually possible also demands clearer rules, streamlined processes, and limits on what officials can extract during permitting.

Notable Updates: The Institute for Justice released model single-room-occupancy legislation. San Francisco approved a citywide "family zoning" plan. The U.S. House removed bipartisan housing reforms from a national defense bill that had passed the Senate. The National Association of Realtors reports a median age of 40 for first-time buyers, a finding that many debate. Massachusetts faces a new legal challenge to inclusionary zoning.