How dare people think they can have a porch at their new house?

The CATCH newsletter contained a gem recently, reporting on the remarks of certain Hamilton City Councillors and their outrage that some new home construction is including porches and my goodness-bay windows. These renegade houses apparently do not have the sort of palatial front yards suburban councillors favour. They therefore contravene by-law set backs-scribbled into planning guidelines which were written I believe before the printing press was invented.  The new houses which I guess are just built in the wrong postal codes, are too close to the sidewalk to allow a porch. The porch might encourage conversation, civility, engagement, and communication, with passersby, and that is clearly against the spirit of isolation and perhaps civic apathy that some councillors seem keen to encourage. All the more reason to locate in the lower city where porches like this one on Bay Street South are not just tolerated but allowed.