[t0mas88]

This "The Dutch do X" kind of story is almost always taken way too extreme. Same as the main article, the author describes many things about the Netherlands which don't apply to that extreme in practice at all.

The country is tiny (3x smaller than the state of New York) but differences are huge by area. For example the "1 (or 1.5) car per house" thing you describe only applies to some neighborhoods in specific cities, people that live there choose to live with that but it's definitely not a country wide thing. As a counter example I live 20 minutes outside Amsterdam, can park both my cars on my own driveway plus more than 10 visitor spots less than 50m walk from my house.

As for the permission to build: That only applies to the outside of the house never the inside, so the bathroom example doesn't exist. And even on the outside it's not for small things like a dormer. The practical restrictions are not that different from what most HOAs in US suburbs put in their contracts. And if you live outside a city you don't have any of these restrictions, because there are no neighbors to be inconvenienced.