We dodged a bullet this spring.
We had our first encounter with a Dome Hater. It came out of the blue and was not connected to us directly. It falls under the crazy neighbor category. We have all heard stories of crazy neighbors even if we haven't directly experienced one.
Directly next to our property is another lot for sale. We were surprised and caught off guard when we started getting text messages from the owner letting us know that his potential buyer had plans to stop us from building a dome. Clearly a HATER but at least our current neighbor gave us the heads up!
We bought a 8.5 acre lot and changed the house site to be 650 ft back from the road on top of a hill. The house itself is only 18 ft high and will be painted an earth tone with the plans to grow vines over it. The house site on the lot next to us is 75 ft from the road and in a low hollow area. The house would be about 500 feet from us and they would need to look through 3 tree lines. I would be surprised if they could even see our house when it is built. The hater didn't go as far as finding out these details before threatening us via the guy selling the lot.
The buyer was a builder and he wanted to know what was going to be built on our lot. When he found out it was a dome he indicated to the owner that he would do everything he could to prevent us from building our house. He also, without research, told the lot owner that he was sure it was against zoning. He supposedly went to the town and found out we hadn't submitted permits officially to the town yet. If our neighbor signed a contract with him he planned to immediately try to jump ahead of our permit process and tie things up for us. Supposedly he was going to challenge zoning to make us have a public hearing and review then even try legal action.
We found this all out on a Sunday. ACK! We didn't even have the final engineering plans in hand! Monday morning I rushed the engineers to send final plans and then ran out to get everything printed for building, zoning and health. I got everything filled out, filed and paid for BUT spent a whole day running around like a lunatic. Lucky for us the deal did not work out! It was a huge slap that got us going and hopefully future haters will just have to close their eyes and hate.
We delayed submitting paperwork because we were waiting for South Industries to send us their building proposal. We wanted some hard numbers to get our finances in order before starting permits with the town. We risked the cost of all the permit application fees and submitted before we had any hard numbers from the builder. Not the ideal way to do things!
I did mention it to the building and zoning people in town when I was there. They said there hadn't been anyone asking around that they knew of. The director of the building office thought it was ridiculous that the guy would threaten any of it since he would end up losing in the end.
We have carefully included the town in all our planning for the house right from the beginning. We bought our property after first talking to building and zoning 5 yrs ago. We found the town and all the departments to be welcoming and excited about an unusual project. We have included them in every stage of plan review to make sure everyone was on board. I am happy that we don't have to deal with the headache that almost came our way BUT I am even more reassured about our project because the town officials are clearly on our side. There is a lot to be said for developing relationships with town officials when you want to build something totally different.
All I can say is haters can hate but I already have a plan in place to retaliate against future crazy neighbors. We have a lot of trees and bushes....just sayin.
We had our first encounter with a Dome Hater. It came out of the blue and was not connected to us directly. It falls under the crazy neighbor category. We have all heard stories of crazy neighbors even if we haven't directly experienced one.
Directly next to our property is another lot for sale. We were surprised and caught off guard when we started getting text messages from the owner letting us know that his potential buyer had plans to stop us from building a dome. Clearly a HATER but at least our current neighbor gave us the heads up!
We bought a 8.5 acre lot and changed the house site to be 650 ft back from the road on top of a hill. The house itself is only 18 ft high and will be painted an earth tone with the plans to grow vines over it. The house site on the lot next to us is 75 ft from the road and in a low hollow area. The house would be about 500 feet from us and they would need to look through 3 tree lines. I would be surprised if they could even see our house when it is built. The hater didn't go as far as finding out these details before threatening us via the guy selling the lot.
The buyer was a builder and he wanted to know what was going to be built on our lot. When he found out it was a dome he indicated to the owner that he would do everything he could to prevent us from building our house. He also, without research, told the lot owner that he was sure it was against zoning. He supposedly went to the town and found out we hadn't submitted permits officially to the town yet. If our neighbor signed a contract with him he planned to immediately try to jump ahead of our permit process and tie things up for us. Supposedly he was going to challenge zoning to make us have a public hearing and review then even try legal action.
We found this all out on a Sunday. ACK! We didn't even have the final engineering plans in hand! Monday morning I rushed the engineers to send final plans and then ran out to get everything printed for building, zoning and health. I got everything filled out, filed and paid for BUT spent a whole day running around like a lunatic. Lucky for us the deal did not work out! It was a huge slap that got us going and hopefully future haters will just have to close their eyes and hate.
This lady makes me laugh every time but the remixed video version to music is even funnier.
We delayed submitting paperwork because we were waiting for South Industries to send us their building proposal. We wanted some hard numbers to get our finances in order before starting permits with the town. We risked the cost of all the permit application fees and submitted before we had any hard numbers from the builder. Not the ideal way to do things!
I did mention it to the building and zoning people in town when I was there. They said there hadn't been anyone asking around that they knew of. The director of the building office thought it was ridiculous that the guy would threaten any of it since he would end up losing in the end.
We have carefully included the town in all our planning for the house right from the beginning. We bought our property after first talking to building and zoning 5 yrs ago. We found the town and all the departments to be welcoming and excited about an unusual project. We have included them in every stage of plan review to make sure everyone was on board. I am happy that we don't have to deal with the headache that almost came our way BUT I am even more reassured about our project because the town officials are clearly on our side. There is a lot to be said for developing relationships with town officials when you want to build something totally different.
All I can say is haters can hate but I already have a plan in place to retaliate against future crazy neighbors. We have a lot of trees and bushes....just sayin.
Comments
Post a Comment