Today is a big day. Not only is the most consequential election ever happening right now, we also had a very important meeting with City staff and elected officials to discuss our Code Alternate Review denial. At this point, we've gone through the Planning Commission, PDR, and are now trying to apply for a building permit. To do that, we need to submit a Code Alternate Review (CAR) proposal. This is needed specifically for the straw bale wall construction. We submitted our CAR in September and were subsequently denied with the only basis provided being moisture concerns and failed precedents. Although our submittal had paid significant detail to moisture, none of that effort was mentioned in the short denial. On top of that, there is no formal appeals process for a CAR denial. Talk about frustrating. So what could we do than get higher-level decision makers involved? And so we did. We wound up with a meeting including people for whom this sustainability focused housing project would be of interest including:
In the meeting, we detailed our due diligence in research, the repeated denials of our requests for conversations with code staff, our request for and resulting non-existence of documentation from failed precedents, as well as our knowledge of and commitment to moisture management best practices. In the end, it was clear that policy and policy makers point toward wanting more projects like the Uptown Strawhouse in the city and that the current barrier has been the inability to get a conversation with code staff. Covid has honestly made everything about this project hard, so that may be the reason for this difficulty. Thankfully though, the meeting today has led us over this barrier, and we anticipate meeting with code officials in the next few weeks to go over the details and answer any of their concerns. Hooray! We're so grateful to all of the attendees to recognize the promise and opportunity of our project and to work together to find ways forward for more climate innovative projects. I also created a handout about our project in preparation for the meeting that gives a good overview of the project and how we're addressing moisture.
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AuthorKatie Jones and Peter Schmitt chronicle their building adventure. Archives
January 2024
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