I find it ironic that both your post and the article you cite, arguing there is no accountability, start by referring to CFPB testimony in front of the congressional oversight “committee session to mark up CFPB reform legislation.”

Thoughts as to regulatory bills are formed in committee by politicians in both parties.

I was not happy with the job our architectural committee was doing so I decided to join the committee.

In other words, 90 percent of private investors’ losses will be covered unless there is a national crisis, in which case they would lose nothing.[1] As the 2008 crisis made clear, these are the kinds of government guarantees that lead to more leverage in the economy, thus magnifying underlying economic risks.”Tim Johnson announced that the committee will reconvene this Thursday to continue looking at the bill.

The more research you can do and hand-off to them in a clear, organized, format, the more you can save on lawyer fees by decreasing their scope of work.Again, every municipality is different, but the approval process for a rezoning typically involves an informal meeting with the City's staff, a formal application, and a few public meetings such as a neighborhood committee, a zoning review board, and the City Council meeting.

A hidden gem can be accessing the affiliate committees of realtor boards.  

Their deals are highly curated and they have a very experienced investment committee.  

They are the head office or they run the loan committee so they know what they can do.John Corey

Further, if approval requires review by the architectural committee, then the discussion with the President (and his verbal approval) was meaningless anyway.My best suggestion is to go to the architectural committee and see if you can get the work grandfathered in.

As one of the lone voices on several of those bank committees cautioning against increasing the bank's exposure to Countrywide, already at $50 billion at the time, I know no one wants to hear a contrarian, but..... my thought processes when evaluating a deal and why I'm not [yet] comfortable with the Preferred Returns / Target Returns presentation and methodology: 1.