But...It's not yours!!

I guess I skipped over a couple of juicy details. Before they would grant us the approval to build, they took a look at the property records and realized that it was still in the name of Andrea's father. We had been working at getting the title and everything finalized, but still had a couple of details to work out.
When we originally went to turn in our plans, the city wouldn't allow us to because the property wasn't in our name. After Kevin asked what they would need to show that the property was in our name, they said "We'll just take your word for it." Huh?? So, if Kevin would have said that it was ours, then they would have let him turn in the permits?
Anyway, we drew up an agreement with Andrea's father that sold us the lot, and gave us permission to build at any point in time before closing. So, we turned in the paperwork. When the city wouldn't let us proceed, we got on the phone to see what was taking the parties involved so much time. In true domino fashion, things just kept falling down. Everyone kept pointing fingers at each other.
1. Our financing bank told us that they needed the report from the title company to proceed with our paperwork.
2. The title company said that they were waiting for the surveyor's report to be turned in to the county and the recording to be done before they could finish their part of the job. They also needed a letter from the credit union that held the loan for the lot.
3. The surveyor forgot to turn in the paperwork to the county.
4. The credit union holding the loan for Andrea's father hadn't sent correspondence to the title company asking for the information needed to release the loan. According to them, they were waiting for the title company to send them a request.
In a nutshell, those were the initial problems. Everybody waiting for each other, but noone knowing that they were being waited upon.
We called up the surveyors, asked them to please get their part in, which they complied and did.
We called up the credit union holding the loan, and when asked whether or not the correspondence had been completed, the manager replied "I'll get to it when I get to it!"
Well, that wasn't a pleasant exchange...fortunately, Kevin used to work for this organization, and still remembered the name of the Vice President in charge of that area. After a brief phone call with said Vice President (who was happy to help, even though the conversation was somewhat awkward) we were informed that the letter would go out that afternoon. (It helps to know people!)
Title company got things done within two days, and the bank people got their stuff done in less time than anticipated. There was a lot of sweating and hand-holding through the whole process, but within a week we finally emerged victorious from the city offices with permits in hand.

Duplicate Foundation permits

More good news...Since we turned in all of our plans together, it was less expensive to do all of the plan reviews and approval process. However, we had a class of contractors that we were trying to prepare the foundation for. Maple Brook was waiting for us to confirm that we'd be able to get everything done in time. Brandon, our engineer, was able to talk the city into letting us break the foundation permit from the rest of the permits so that we could at least pour the foundation and get that going so it wouldn't hold the class back.
When Andrea went down to the city offices to get the foundation permit, she was informed that since the permit was being drawn out previous to the rest of the permits, there would be an additional cost....the entire permit cost. Basically, we had to pay the cost for the foundation permit (multiple hundreds of dollars) twice: they would not remove the cost from the other permits when we took them out.
Finally it was time to pour the foundation. We had them come out and put the forms up (interesting process...kind of fun to watch.) We also had the city come out and take a look at the forms before any cement was poured (highly recommended) since our foundation was right on the setbacks for two of the four sides. After that approval, they brought in a truck and poured the cement, and within two days, those forms were off and the foundation was ready for further work.

Continued opportunities to increase patience

Then it was time to turn the plans in. We finally got everything together from the variuos parties involved, but then we needed to make sure that we were going to be able to get all of the utilities to the lot. This included bringing out a drain person to assess the status of the drain pipes there and the sewer that should have already been in existence.
The city engineer informed us that we would need to get a soil sample (huh?) from our lot to help us with the foundation plans. Of course, there's only one person in the area that does this type of evaluation. So, we happily paid $450 to have someone come out and tell us that we needed to dig the foundation down 1 foot further than normal because we live in an area that has a soil called "Dayton Silt Loam", which is a layer of sand above a layer of clay that shifts, expands and contracts with the seasons.
So, armed with the knowledge that we had to dig down 3-3 1/2 feet for the foundation, then place about 6 inches to a foot of crushed gravel on top of that, we discussed with our engineer the possible complications of this requirement. Having planned on doing a slab foundation, and having all of our engineered drawings done to that effect meant that we would be building a concrete monolith. We're talking huge cement block. We eventually decided to just do a crawl space, which saved us a little bit of money on the cement, but increased the labor cost on the preparation. (sigh).

Building highlights

Our building process has been comical. Well, we have to laugh, or we would be depressed. The house itself is amazing, and the processes we are using are great. The hardest part has been getting to this point. Kevin got his contractor's license so he could be the General. But, our lovely city is very anti-growth. They like to make things as hard as possible, just because they can.

Here are some of our highlights (or lowlights, depending on when you talk to me) from our dealings with the city:

1. We needed to adjust the lot lines to accommodate the duplexes. We turned our paperwork into the city. After they sat on it for almost a month, they decided “right as I was about to approve your lot line adjustment” that they would no longer allow lot line adjustments in the city. Fantastic.
2. So, we had to submit for a minor replatt. That costs more money, and takes several weeks to accomplish. I talked them out of charging us extra, because that would be morally wrong as far as I am concerned.
3. After waiting the several weeks for the replatt, the city decided that under the replatt rules, we would not be able to build duplexes on the property. My dad did his homework before he purchased the property. He checked the zoning with the city, and they had told him that duplexes would be fine.
4. After all this drama, the city decided to grandfather us in, and let us do a lot line adjustment after all. Thanks, that only cost us almost three months, and several mortgage payments.

I have more pictures coming, but for some reason the disc that they are saved on is now coming up blank, so I will have to find out where they are. Sorry!

In the beginning...

If I had been smart, I would have started this blog the day we found the property. But, I will backtrack a little to bring everything currrent. My dad bought this property in December of 2007. There are three lots all together. The plan is for us to purchase one lot from him for our house, and then build a duplex on either side of our house for my parents.

We are not seasoned developers, but have had some experience. My dad developed a piece of property two years ago. He divided it into four parts, two he built on, and two were sold. Kevin and I actually built our spec house on one of the divided lots from this property. After building and selling the spec house, I was determined we would never build again. But, time makes you forget things, and eventually I couldn't remember why I didn't want to build. So, here we are.

Here are some views of the lots before we started.

Under Construction

Thanks for visiting our house site. We are so excited to share how we are building the house. We are using some amazing products. Keep checking back to see all our pictures!