This is a true story, I actually took the photograph below.
A couple of years ago while we were in California, my [former] son-in-law took me out to a cabin his family owns way out in the ginkey weeds of Monterey county.
It seems his neighbor wanted to build a house but the county wanted $17,000.00 for a building permit, which was about all the money he had.
He got around having to buy a building permit by building a houseboat……on the side of a hill: