Putting up a shop in CA - fire department being a pain

Around here, anything 120 sq ft or smaller requires no city notification. A neighbor might call on a structure and code enforcement might come out with a tape measure, but that's where it ends.

Same here. And around here even if a neighbor did call they'd need to have a pretty good story for code enforcement to even bother with something like that, unless maybe you were already "on the radar" for other stuff

Here, anything over 600 Sq ft requires a permit.

Anything under 600 Sq ft requires a permit exemption for a small fee of $65.:BangHead:

Just makes no sense other than highway robbery.