A lot of charming naïveté here along the lines of "surely the city has fire regulations, and surely the building will be reviewed for those!"

You forget the power of money. I live near the Apple Spaceship, where they have the city of Cupertino completely cowed and afraid to even ask a question about their stupid plans. An entire useful east-west artery (Pruneridge) was permanently taken out of service for that.

It's so cute when you assume that Santa Barbara is going to say No to this.