A month later, and yet another flip-flop

On October 13, we were told by the Planning Dept that if we got an engineer to sign off on the spray foam insulation, we could close up the walls with drywall. They even provided the name of an engineer we could contact. We confirmed this verbally and, wanting to get this done before winter, we hired yet another engineer, who signed off on everything. Great! Sent it off to the Planning Department. And now they are backpedalling and saying we still can't put up the drywall. Something confusing to do with change of use permits and inspections. The process could take a few months to get that.

Hold it. Wait. I just paid for an engineer I didn't need, on THEIR SAY-SO, and we still have to get an inspector to give the okay? I have to put the drywallers and electricians on hold yet again, when they've been waiting since March? And what on earth does a change of use have to do with drywall? We're not changing the footprint of the building. We're not adding bedrooms or turning it into condos. We're not building an opium den, here, folks. We're putting up drywall on the non-load-bearing studs we built inside the exterior walls. That doesn't take a permit, surely. You're totally allowed to maintain your property and add insulation without a permit. That's all we're trying to do. We've done that in our city house without a hitch. As of this moment, we haven't changed the use of this building. It's still a church with institutional zoning, as ever. If we hadn't applied for this rezoning, we could have just slapped up these interior walls and drywall with no permits needed at all and no one would have been the wiser or had any say about anything. It's the stupid rezoning application that is complicating everything. 

I am about three milliseconds away from yanking the whole application. Seriously, why is this so difficult? I don't mind a complicated process, but at least give me complete and accurate information so I know how to navigate it. Someone seriously needs to do up a flowchart. 

What I'm trying to figure out is how such a conservative stronghold has ended up with so much bureaucracy. I long for the old days when you could claim land, whack together a log cabin on it, and no one paid any attention to you.