navigate to the page type defaults page for the page type you want the permissions for. Hover edit and click permissions. Make sure the setting on top is set to "from page type defaults". Every new page of that type should then inherit the permissions set in the page type defaults for that page type!!

Thanks for your reply. Your suggestion worked so that I could make the design feature unavailable to users after adding a block, but after changing those page type permissions to by page type defaults, users were then unable to add a page from the sitemap. It seems that for users to be able to add a page and edit the contents, they need the "edit content" access on the page type defaults, but then the design feature is still available after they add a block. It's not accessible on the area, but only after they add a block. I don't see how they can edit a page without the edit content access on the page type. Can you please advise?
Thanks!!!

if you click on "add to area" and click set permissions, you can then override the page permissions for the particular area. Make these changes to the page type defaults page. Should solve your problem!!

Thank you again. I am not sure I understand where I need to click "add to ____ area" and the click "set permissions". Do you mean in the area, click "add block", and put sample content in there, so that I can set the permissions for the block?

For instance, in your "main" area, where you click "add to main". click that and click set permissions.

then, you can also click on individual blocks within the areas and set permissions to those as well. Preferably, you would want to get all these permissions set up on the page type defaults page so from then on, all new pages will inherit the defaults from page type defaults!!

Ok, so I think I understand what my problem is now. I am letting users add the block to the area, but if I do that I can't set the permissions to the block since it doesn't exist until they create it. So, I think what I need to do is add the block to the area in the page type defaults and set the permissions. Is that what you were saying?

clear your head and take a slow deep look into all these permissions. You'll figure it out!!

That comment was not helpful at all. I have been studying these permissions for a while now. The only way block permissions can be set so that the design or layout feature is not available is to have the block already there in the page type and set the block permissions. Even this way if a user adds a NEW block, the design feature will be available unless the permissions of the entire page type are set to "by page type default" which does not work when users try to add pages from the sitemap. (They can add a page, but they can't access it to add content). I think this is a C5 bug. Can anyone confirm?

sorry I came back to add that comment, as an encouragement, and you posted before i did :) So what you want to do, is allow someone to add a block to a page, but not have access to add design and such. correct?

Yes that's correct.

Thank you very much for confirming this! Yes, I agree that it would be great to set them globally through dashboard > blocks & stacks permissions. Have a great night!

It would be even better to be able to hardcode the area permissions in the template files..