Restrictive City Codes

[Kevin]

My school is located in what most people would call a very yuppie community. The city has many codes that make it difficult for us to operate a small house before before building our own.

We are currently limited to 3 residents according to the local fire marshal because:

1. We don't have a sprinkler system
1a. The neighborhood doesn't have the water pressure to support one so we'd have to generate our own water pressuer for the system somehow.
2. Walls aren't sheetrocked
3. Doors aren't self-closing
4. Do not have fire escapes from EVERY room
5. Residence part of house is not seperated from common area by a lockable door.
6. Stove is not covered by a vent hood
7. We don't have all the wiring in the house going to one central closet.

Essentially they tried to do away with rent houses with our city fire code (rent houses must do bad things to people's property values). Unfortunately, we are forced to comply with this and it has really restricted us financially. Has anyone else out there had any difficulties with restrictive city codes? Is there a good catch-all way to overcome them?