Wow how things have changed. In 1980 we restored the Italianate Victorian farm house on Bascom near Dry Creek Road and placed it on the National Record of Historic Places. All the powers at Campbell City Hall were quite helpful.
If we did it now it would probably be a pain in the ass.
We left the area for good in 98.
We’re in southern Utah now.
My mother was one of the original house-flippers as a divorced mother of 5 in the late 60’s. She got a 10k loan from my grandfather, took a big risk and used us kids as sweat-equity in fixing up a dumpy little house on Edelen Ave (now worth more than 2million$$) by Old Town in Los Gatos. She repeated this over and over and over and was very successful with tons of hard work. She could NEVER do the same thing today. The motto in California is that success and hard work are punished, mindless drones are rewarded.
Nowdays, being designated as ‘Historical’ is the kiss of death for ever making any improvement.
It’s so bad that, in Santa Clara, you’re supposed to get a permit to replace your dishwasher, replace your kitchen faucets, put irrigation in your lawn, etc....
It is truly the death of 1000 cuts. They get away with it by picking on tiny little constituencies and no one notices or cares because, until you try to make any improvement, it’s completely off your radar. A local realtor told us the story about a homeowner who was replacing a post on his front porch because of termites and a city inspector was driving by and asked if he had a permit. He said, No. The inspector said “Stop work, you need a permit.”