Checkout fails on restrictions in higher .svn dir

It seems that if Subversion finds a .svn directory in any parent path up
to the filesystem root, it requires access to the wc.db file or fails to
perform a checkout operation.

The use-case that caused this is a system where parts of the filesystem
are checked into an SVN repo for operational management with a checkout
at the root. The permissions on the /.svn/ dir are such that only root
can access them (file mode 0700.) However, this means users cannot
perform checkout operations anywhere on the system, including their own
homedirs. Subversion sees the /.svn/ directory, attempts to open
/.svn/wc.db, is denied access, and refuses to perform the checkout as a
result.

There was an old thread from 2010 with a much too-broad solution of
ignoring all the WC sanity checks here:
http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2010-02/0431.shtml

Is there no other way to allow Subversion to gracefully ignore a working
copy database it does not have access to and allow a user to perform a
checkout?

Right now the only work-around I have is to rename the .svn dir in the
filesystem root, and every name it back every time I have to update or
commit files.

svn, version 1.8.9 (r1591380)

Thanks for any suggestions,

--
Josh