Saturday, March 10, 2012

batten down the hatches, it's time for a rant!!!!!!

So, this week, the plans continued their journey through the city maze, and our wonderful city, in all it's brilliant glory, decided that we couldn't live without sidewalks on the front side of our property. You have to know that the property is 192' long, and not attached to ANYTHING else that will ever have a sidewalk. So, we will have a 192' sidewalk to NOWHERE!!!!! They also "asked" (read FORCED) us to "donate" 14' of easement, 8ft of setback and 6 ft of sidewalk. Your tax dollars at work. Also, remember that really cool landscape plan? Totally trash now. Needs to be completely redone due to losing the 14' along the front of the property.

The good news, they originally wanted 30feet of setback which would have necessitated us moving our shop. (which has been there since 1965). The generously decided that 14' would be enough. The cost? Aside from the cost of the property, about 12K to put in the sidewalks, which was NOT in the budget.

They also want us to bring in multiple truckloads of dirt, because we'll be disturbing the "native" dirt. Not too bad, we'd need to do that for landscaping anyway, but it can't just be ANY dirt. It has to be specially tested and approved dirt and come from a specific dirt source, none of which are located in this city. So we'll have to haul special dirt from 40 miles away. NICE!!!! No wonder no one can afford to build a house!!!

On a happy note, we did make some more purchases this week.....
the ups man delivered.....
my in-wall ironing board (love it!) and the paper holders and towel bars for the bathrooms
We also got the tank for the rainwater collection, and an awesome fountain and two benches for the front garden, which we need to still get out of the truck. It weighs MORE than the bathtub.

The rest of the good news....the city is almost done with the plans. They just need the "post construction soil amendment plan". Next step....cutting trees, clearing and digging.
Y'all keep your fingers crossed that the electrical conduit under the road we had installed a few years ago is still good. That would save us tons of money. A plumber is coming soon with a camera to scope it out. stay tuned......
Game on!

No comments:

Post a Comment