On Site Plans
So one of the major hurdles this week didn't seem to be a hurdle. We needed to give our site plans to the contractor, so he could get our permit to start rebuilding. Of course, we have a full set of house plans and another roll of plans which looked like site plans. I snapped the pictures below, the deconstruction ones, when I stopped by the house to drop off the site plans. Knowing that the permitting process was moving forward, I was excited and happy!
But then the contractor emailed to say that those were not the site plans we needed. Oh No! The site plans were supposed to be a one page drawing that came with the settlement papers. Okay, so our papers are spread far and wide. Some are here at the apartment; some are stored elsewhere. However, I got lucky. I found the settlement papers with little fuss. And yes, there was the site plan. I started to write an email to the contractor, but first I looked at the plan.
Wait, our house doesn't have a porch...and that isn't our address. These are not our site plans. They gave us the wrong ones at settlement. The sinking feeling I got when I realized that was only worsened by the news that it takes 10-30 days to request a site plan from the county. With another 30 days maybe to get a a permit, that would put us behind schedule by 2 months.
On the advice of R.C., I went to the permit office to request a site plan. R.C. had been able to just walk in and get one. The county permit office reminds me of the DMV, so I was immediately feeling hopeless. The woman at the desk gave me the paper work and said the dreaded words, "10-30 days." The look on my face or the tears that welled up must have softened her up. I said, "but these were supposed to be with my settlement papers; they gave us the wrong site plan. We had a fire and have been out of the house..." I admit I was a little incoherent. I was trying so hard not to cry, but it was crushing. The months were stretching out in my head. The woman took pity on me and told me to fill out the paper work over in the cubicles and come back. It took all of 2 minutes to fill out the paper work. I then had to wait for one of the people who take care of these requests. I was filled with hope again.
I waited for about 10 minutes when my name was called. The woman who met me took my form and said the dreaded words "10-30 days." I just stared at her and repeated my story again trying not to cry. I asked where else I could get the plans. She took pity on me and led me back to her office. She told me that she would do a quick search to see if the plans were available or if they were on microfilm. The whole time she was typing in the computer, she was talking about how backed up they were. I just sat holding my breath hoping that if the plans were readily available. If they were, I was fully expecting to have to come back to pick up the plans, but at least if I knew that it was only going to be a few days, then I would be okay.
She looked at me and smiled. "You are lucky," she said. Lucky was the last thing I was feeling at the moment, but when she handed me two copies of the site plans and told me to hang on to one, I felt like I had just won the lottery.
The whole trip took less than 30 minutes, but if felt like a year. So the site plans are in, permitting is underway and things are moving forward.
posted by Professor V. @ 6:12 AM
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