Closer & Closer to the Build....

With our 3rd Submittal last week, we are now waiting to hear (and crossing our fingers) that this will be the last round of corrections.  In case your just starting to follow, let me give you the quick version of building in San Bernardino County.

1. Buy the land

2. Submit plans and all needed documents (in our case apply for a major variance - since our property is so unconventional)

3. Wait to hear back and if there are corrections, correct and resend (over 25 corrections on our project...)

4. Wait to hear back and if there are corrections, correct and resend (we cut out a few and had 12 corrections to go;) Aaaaand, in our case apply for an additional minor variance (since we're unconventional)

Real time: we are in the waiting stage after the 3rd submittal and crossing our fingers that this is the last set of corrections.  If so, we'll receive our permit and we'll hit the ground running!  Venture Yours is tying up all the loose ends to get this CA treehouse ready for all our travelers; stay tuned!

Update on Major Variance

This major variance is just as expected (Very slow!)  Recap: The location of the tree's that we are using are 8 feet from the property line and the county requires a 15 foot setback.  This rule, has us applying for a Major Variance...

We have now sent 3 revised site plan's, hoping this will be the last.  (finger's crossed)  Below are pictures and comments from the county and Public Works.

pointing at tree that would need to be removed for parking....will it be removed?


Click here to see combined Comments from County and Public Works

Preliminary Meeting and Red Tape to Cut Through

After a few months of dialing in the design/architecture for the treehouse, there was still one big question:  We have an exterior staircase going from the main structure to the "hang out" structure; Will this pass as a minimum of 735 sqft that is required?  We were getting to a point in our design in which we were ready to send to the engineer, and I didn't want to be sending the engineer a design that may have to completely be re-done if the city didn't give the OK.... 

Jams on the road are a key component to any important meeting...

I set up a preliminary meeting with a few city contacts - Building and Safety Land Use and the architect was going to be on the phone through the meeting.  With any important meeting, I make sure all my ducks are in a row; the night before I was gathering any information that would help my case and make it easier for the city contacts to see the vision.   A key component with any important meeting - Throwing jams on my car stereo at a good volume to pump myself up...After 1.5 hrs of being well pumped, I walked into that city structure ready to dominate (yet nervous the city may shoot down the plans completely.....)

San Bernardino Land Use Services Department

I walked in to the meeting and more and more people started coming in; apparently there was a lot of interest in this project and I took that as a good thing ;)  By the end of the meeting, there was a good 8 of us in the room discussing the project and it felt good to have all those city contacts at my fingertips with any questions.  In the room we had the following city contacts:

Supervising Planner
Building and Safety Supervisor
Land Development Engineer
Structural Engineer
Building Official
Fire Prevention Officer
Architect

And may I also add, in the building department you don't see too many females, so I used that to my advantage and worked my charm ;)  Needless to say, the meeting went well and we were given the "preliminary official" OK that the architectural design is a go!

Meeting with Contractor

Shea's pretty into the outdoors:)

After getting a better feel for the design, I needed to make sure we were still in budget for the contractor work.  Originally the structure was going to be a small structure in the tree, with a roof deck, but after talking with the city, they let us know that the structure needed to be a minimum of 725 sqft.  This shifted things around a bit.  A few posts ago, you saw the updated design which shows a structure connected by a staircase to the main structure.  This "extra" structure, adds an extra 280 sqft that we had not accounted for....

I met with the contractor to get a feel for what sort of price range we were looking at and unfortunately it was a bit more than we were hoping for...

Back to the budget to see where we can move things around...  after moving our expectations, we are paying more than we thought we would on construction, but still in the budget (I doubt we'll be "in" the budget much longer....hehe)

Soothing the Bump in the Road

Shea checks out the tree's, while dad
does some off-roading

Last we talked, the city mentioned the treehouse was too small and we were most likely going to run into city problems.  After talking with the city, we had 2 options

1. Go the Major Variance Route (Pricey and still a big chance it wouldn't go through)
2. Go Directly for the Buiding Permit with 2 buidings on the property

I called the city contact and did a pre-chat and told him we were thinking of possibly seperating the minimum square footage in 2 different structures.  (One above the garage and the other being the treehouse)  I was trying to get a feeler from him, and if this would pose an issue on the project.  He let me know that if we proposed that, we would essentially be proposing for a duplex (because there are 2 seperate structures on 1 lot....) 

I then asked the golden question: What if we have stairs attatching the 2 structures?  It sounds like this idea may be easier to obtain a buidling permit for and so we are on this path.

What that means for the next step:  Get with the architect and design a seperate structure close to the main structure and have it connected with stairs.  We have been playing with the design and once we get it down I will post it ;)