Had our second presentation before the Architectural Review Board last night. I got
up to the table thinking that it would be a slam dunk to present the changes we had
made that addressed the issues that were brought up before. The previous planner,
Isidro Figueroa, quit recently, and so our project has a new planner. The new planner
has a different interpretation of the city code that deals with space between buildings.

We had been working with the interpretation that the minimum distance between our
garage and our house was 10 feet. The project planner interpreted the code to read
that the minimum distance between buildings was one half the sum of the heights of
both buildings. Our garage is 14 feet tall, the house will be 27 feet tall. (14 +
27)/2 = ~21 feet! The project planner is interpreting the city code to read that we
have to have 21 feet of separation between the garage and the house. There is only
15 feet there now! But Bill quickly rose to the occasion and in discussion with the
planner came up with a plan that by adding a trellis between the house and the garage
the two buildings became one building and thus there is no need for a minimum separation.

That brought up another unexpected issue. On the site plan, the garage was incorrectly
placed within the 5′ side yard setback. This caused the garage to become a ‘legal,
existing, non-conforming building’. Apparently, you cannot attach a non conforming
building to another building. This seemed to kill any plans for the minimum space
issue. With all the unfamiliar jargon, I was not grasping what was being discussed.
At a break in the conversation, I asked Bill what going on. He laid it out in plainer
language. I immediately stated that the garage was, in fact, at least 6 and half feet
from the fence / property line. This brought looks of confusion from everyone. They
returned to the site plan and I re-asserted that the garage was not within
the side yard setback. So, the project planner suggested we delay our Planning Commission
meeting until the ARB could review the new site plan. Another ARB meeting? Before
the Planning Commission? The Planning Commission only meets once a month. What a huge
delay!

But again, Bill saved the day. He suggested that if the garage was not in the setback
the project planner could approve the modified site plan and ARB didn’t need to be
involved. This was acceptable to the ARB, and so we don’t have to go back until we
need final approval. Whew!

I went home and confirmed the measurements of the garage with reference to the side
yard, and yes, there is 6 feet 10 inches from the property line / fence to the wall
of the garage.

This is a ‘watercolor’ image of what our new addition will look like. Our architect took a digital picture of our house (with the story poles) and then overlaid the 3D rendering. The story poles allow for accurate
scaling of the image. Then the picture was rendered in a ‘watercolor’ format.

As always, click on the image to get a bigger view.

Because of the changes to our site plan and the property line (reference this
post and this
post) the project planner for our addition has sent us back to the Architectural
Review Board for a second preliminary review. This means that we have to get back
in line for a third (and final?) review by the ARB after our Planning Commission meeting,
tenatively scheduled for 4 April 2005. This is disappointing in my time line, but
matches perfectly with God’s timeline, to which I am not privy. The project description
for tomorrow’s ARB meeting is
online. Enjoy!

We have a date for the next Architectural
Review Board meeting. We are scheduled for March 17th, 2005. I wanted to be able to post a link to where the agenda can be read beforehand, but the dates are wrong on the website. We had trouble with the online agenda when we had our first meeting. What can you do?

Last night, we had a ‘meeting’ with our neighbors to discuss the property line and the fence and all that is involved with now
knowing where our property line actually is. It went surprisingly well. They decided
not to put in a temporary fence (the idea was chain link), but are going to go with
a 6 foot solid block wall. They want complete control of it, so they are going to
put it inside their property line. They are going to stucco their side and the top,
and leave the other side for us to deal with. Fine with me. That is such an answer
to prayer. We thought they were going to insist that the hedge on their side come
down (which is their right, it is on their property) and then put up a chain link fence leaving our front yard very exposed. So I offered to help pull down the hedge at the end of February.

Another thing that came up at our meeting was that there was a third marker in the ground. I only knew about 2, but this third marker was near the corner of our house. The other 2 were at the ends of the lot, away from the building. This morning, when I looked at this new marker, it looked farther away from my house than 5.5 feet. When I measured from the house, it was 6 feet, 2 inches from my house. An extra 8 inches? If so, this would allow us to revert back to our original plan of constructing a shell around the existing house. When my dad came over later in the day, we ran string between the permanent, offical markers and saw that at the front of the proposed addition (about 15 feet back from the front of the existing house) there is 6 feet, 3 inches from the existing house to the official property line, and at the back of the existing house, there is 6 feet, 4 inches. This gives us 15 inches at the front, and 16 inches at the back to go out. Enough room to build the exterior wall without demolishing the existing wall. Praise God.

Finally, the reason my mom and dad came over was to deliver the 5th wheel travel trailer for Camille to stay in while she visits. They brought my uncle Mark who has a Class A driver’s license and is very good in the manuevering of the trailer. He got the trailer in place without any problems, although it did take a long time. Our back alley, Cedar Place, is not very wide, and he had to do some slick driving to back the trailer into the area behind our garage. We had to trim back the orange tree a bit to get the trailer to fit. Toby didn’t shed any tears. I think Camille will really enjoy having her own place to sleep when she needs it.

Praise God for his many blessings and answers to prayers.