I really care about making a petroleum-free house - one which at the end of its life can be recycled and composted. Barriers to that goal however, exist, and we document them here. From the beginning, we knew of two areas in which we could not avoid plastic:
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Our architecture team, builder, and strawbale expert recently met and talked about design details. This integrated design meeting is SO valuable to the process because it allows each expert bring their priority concerns to the table and for those concerns to be worked out BEFORE construction starts. For example, our strawbale expert explained why it's better to have the post and beam posts positioned on the edge of the bales rather than the middle. Why?
As this is our first building project, we're learning that there is other expertise required for a successful project.
Exciting things first - our land use application is in! The purpose of this document is to match how we intend to use the property against current zoning code. We're currently zoned R3 (our property was unfortunately down-zoned two years ago....that's another story), which allows up to a triplex on our lot. To add our strawhouse, we are applying for a cluster development land use. This application also checks for setbacks from property lines, structure height, amount of permeable surface... basically everything related to how the land is used. This application is currently being reviewed by planners in CPED, and they will make a recommendation to the Planning Commission on whether to approve or deny our application. Our application does request a couple of variances regarding setbacks and ..., but so far in our discussions with planning staff they appear to be reasonable variance requests. The downside of variance requests though is costs. We anticipate the review process for these variances to cost between $1000-2000. And now the unfortunate news: our project must go through Preliminary Development Reveiw (PDR). PDR is normally triggered for large projects (think apartment buildings) and involves considerations like addressing, business licensing, environmental, park boundary and forestry, utility connections, public right of way, sidewalk review, street design review, and stormwater management review. For this review, we have to hire a civil engineer, which would normally be completely unnecessary for the size of this project. So goodbye to an unexpected $2-3000. The next step for us in this process is a public hearing at the Planning Commission on March 9th. On the design side, our project is in design development with Precipitate. Above, they are working on the roof to wall connection, with Michelle Obama looking on approvingly (the conference room is named for her). I'm excited to have a design workshop next week with them! |
AuthorKatie Jones and Peter Schmitt chronicle their building adventure. Archives
January 2024
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