Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Thought sure I was going to get the building permit on Friday.  Sat with the county engineer and went through his latest markups and he finally signed off on the plans, then went to a technician whose job was to check off the list of all the hoops I've had to go through, and she got to the last item and found a problem.

I had been told that I have to put a little ten-foot strip of asphalt between my dirt driveway and the county road. God forbid I should track my dirt out onto the street...  Well that little job takes another permit (and about $1000 in fees), and I hadn't applied for it.  To make it worse, an inspector has to come out to the property and approve the location of the driveway before they'll issue the driveway permit, which I need to get the building permit. Following all this?

Welcome to my world.

After three phone calls and an email, I finally spoke with the inspector, and she offered to come out today.  That was nice, because I had been camping out there for a couple of days, playing in the dirt with an old tractor, and I wanted to be there when she did the inspection.  Good thing I was, too, because she was at the wrong driveway when she called to say she had arrived.


Happily, she approved the location, after making me promise to cut down a little scrub oak that was interfering with visibility coming out of the driveway.  I had the chainsaw and loppers in the truck, so I went right to work on the tree.

Here are some before-and-after shots

The little tree is on the far left of the first picture.  I had to move the driveway closer to it to avoid crossing the corner of my neighbor's property. Only a stump remains after today.  You can see the quality of street pavement that we're trying to protect...

The drive before.  

The drive today.  Money permitting,
it will be covered with gravel
when construction is finished.

The turning circle when I bought the place.

The turning circle after I "Zenned" it up.

I camped in a cozy little stand of oaks at the top of the property.  It provides shade in the afternoons, so I'll probably make that my temporary home when I move out to the property during construction. 

Stay tuned for the building permit!

(I've been tuned for eight months!)