Governments offer various controls on remodeling

One of the most unsettling experiences you can encounter is looking out your front window to see a huge Dumpster being delivered in your neighbor's driveway.

What does it mean? What are they going to do? How will their decisions affect you and the rest of your neighbors?

You are immediately thrown into the quandary of individual property rights versus neighborhood/community rights. In our society, we have decided a homeowner does not have the right to do anything he wants to his own property.

However, the question of how much control society has over the individual is an ongoing issue. People see a project that they find objectionable and they ask us — as architects — what can we do to protect our neighborhood so this doesn't happen (or doesn't happen again) on our street?

While we don't have a definitive answer to solve all your problems, here are the main agencies society has created to attempt to regulate our built environment.

Municipal Planning Office: Zoning codes address standards such as the type of building that can be constructed (single family, multifamily, commercial, etc.), the overall size of the building in terms of floor area (expressed as an allowable percentage of lot coverage in residential projects), the allowable height, and where the building (and accessory building such as a garage) can be placed on the lot.

Individual communities can create zoning overlays — or rules that apply just in their area — such as reducing the overall height allowance or lot coverage. These overlays must be approved by the City Council (in Salt Lake City) in order to have legal status.

Municipal Building Department: Building codes are regulations to promote life safety. They affect such things as the size and placement of windows and doors, smoke alarms, height and width of stair treads, seismic (earthquake) and structural issues, etc. The focus is how to get people safely out of any dangerous situation, not on preserving the building itself.