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The answer is to do the work first, then ask for permission later. Or at least that's the example Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointed heads of Public Works are showing us. In a Curbed LA investigation, an East Hollywood resident hired a crew to make a second driveway for her home on the 1100 block N. Westmoreland Avenue. There's two problems here: 1) She had no permit; 2) The street is apparently crowded with few parking spaces available to others in the neighborhood.
Nonetheless, Curbed learned that "after neighbors complained, [Resident Alyssa] Romano was instructed by the Bureau of Street Services to apply for a driveway permit (retroactively) with the Department of Engineering." She was eventually awarded the permit.
It's the classic "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission," but also a precedent setting one for anyone who is denied a permit.
