diff --git a/settings/default.local.settings.php b/settings/default.local.settings.php
index a13bc506e..dce855aad 100644
--- a/settings/default.local.settings.php
+++ b/settings/default.local.settings.php
@@ -130,6 +130,18 @@
  */
 $settings['rebuild_access'] = FALSE;
 
+/**
+ * Skip file system permissions hardening.
+ *
+ * The system module will periodically check the permissions of your site's
+ * site directory to ensure that it is not writable by the website user. For
+ * sites that are managed with a version control system, this can cause problems
+ * when files in that directory such as settings.php are updated, because the
+ * user pulling in the changes won't have permissions to modify files in the
+ * directory.
+ */
+$settings['skip_permissions_hardening'] = TRUE;
+
 /**
  * Temporary file path:
  *