One of the phrases I've heard kicked around recently is Coral Gables permit nightmare. I wasn't really sure what the source of this particular nightmare was, so I did a little digging and discovered that the phrase most likely originates from a Coral Gables Planning and Zoning Board Meeting.

Now, this is fun for several reasons -- primarily because the transcripts are published online! (And yes, the city of Coral Gables really does own the URL citybeautiful.net, beating out such fine metropolitan areas as Des Plaines, IL and Fayetteville, AR in a brutal bidding war. Maybe someday soon they'll upgrade to citybeautiful.comfor a measly $2500.00)

The source of the phrase permit nightmare seems to be some citizen kvetching about ugly houses someone had the gall to build in a Gables neighborhood.

And here's the thing about ugly houses: not only do people have to live in them, their neighbors have to look at them! Property values plummet across the neighborhood just because one guy cheaped out on his architect. Foul!

Take a minute and browse the CityBeautiful.net archive of zoning board meetings -- they're wonderfully prolix and at times moving in their demonstration that human beings can become worked up over anything -- anything -- no matter how trivial and pedestrian.