Permission to Build
Subject: Permission to build
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 10:22:51 -0700
Has JUST been granted at 9:45am on Tuesday June 6, 2000.
Katherine is on the way as I write this to pick up the permit and drop off more money. We will be pouring concrete on Friday June 16, and then the house can start going up.
We've not been idle during all this time. The grading went longer than expected, though not as long as the people next door. (Pity them, they are using an Excavator to be a jack hammer they have so many rocks to break up and remove.) And we have been placing all the underground bits and pieces to be ready for this day. The trenches are ready and the electric pipes are in place for SDG&E to put the wire into. The water tank is installed and the 'Fire Hydrant Stand' is ready. The water tank is also full of 10,000 gallons of water. We've been using it to water down the trenches as we back fill them.
The other interesting thing is that we have a permit to create a rock pit. This is a special permit to bury the excess rocks that we 'found' on the property. The process of placing these rocks in the pit requires a soils engineer to watch the people using the Cat D-6 and the Loader to make sure we put the proper amount and compaction of soil on top of these rocks. The location of the rocks is noted on our grading plans.
Speaking of grading plans, we built a 'road' which the city engineer who was watching our work ignored (Another story). When the soils company who did watch the work submitted our grading compaction report to the city, it included this road. Damn. Apparently the city clerk who reviewed our compaction report just 'ignored' this part of the report.
Speaking of the city clerk who reviewed our compaction report, for some reason unknown to us he went up the hill to review the MDRA being re-submitted by our neighbors down the hill, who let it expire. While he was there with the fire department, who had to be there to approve the MDRA, he decided to 'come up and look around.' Katherine and Ron Torp (our contractor) encouraged this visit to our lot. When he saw what we had done in the grading of the lot, and not just a flat piece of paper, he said that 'I can approve of this.' And he did just that.
After that Roger Mohling (the aging hippy, and contractor for the house next door, with the rock problem) came over and said 'hi.' This created a major "aren't we all great" meeting, and the city clerk made it sound like we would have even fewer problems with our getting our building permit. (It was after this that the compaction report was sent to the city clerk.)
So. . . Right now I'm slightly poorer, slightly happier and well on the way to getting Magrethea built.
The first inspection of the underground rough plumbing is tomorrow, at which time we can fill it in and start on the re-bar installation.
-barto
--
David Barto
From a Marketing type:
Don't give me any technical reason why something can't be done.
If you really believed in the product you'd make it work.
