Greetings to all...yes I know everyone is wondering what is happening at the New "Old" place...well the answer is, "Not one thing!!" Yep, nothing has happened there for about 1 to 1 1/2 months now.
Do you remember that post I did awhile ago about getting to know the Department of Environmental folks...well YEP this has to do with them.
Before we bought the property there was a developer that agreed to do ALOT of stuff so he could develop about 20 acres of the land. Fire surpression tanks, dividing the lots, permits filed, planting 1 1/2 acres of trees and on an on. So the dear developer did a little bit of stuff and then sold the development to someone, who then went bankrupt and then someone else bought the property. Sooo....DEPN (department of environment protection) told us that there will be NO permits given to us or the developer, since the trees weren't planted. Well we noticed that the developer started on a new home in the development, so our builder went and was able to get a permit. So we started our journey of tearing apart the house. About two months ago the DEPN decided to check out the development and since they were soo close to our place decided to check out our place also...OOPS...they were furious. They called Bill and wanted to know why we were building, how we got a permit, did we get it signed... and then they told Bill that they would be RESINDING the permit, since we didn't plant the trees. Come to find out DEPN will not hold the current developer responsible for the trees since he wasn't the one who signed the contract AND they won't hold the orginal developer responsible, since he is NO longer in the picture SO guess who is responsible for these trees...YEP you guessed it...US!! Thank goodness we did our homework on this property and knew what might happen, we had the orginal owners put $$ into escrow for things like this. When DEPN came to check on us and found out we were building they also noticed that there was a feeder stream that they had no record of...and guess what...they NEED to protect that also. So a mtg. was set up with the forester and DEPN and us to figure out a plan, DEPN wanting 100 feet from the stream in the back of the house all back to the natural state and us wanting no more that 50 feet. All streams (feeder included) needed to be shaded and back to the natural state, with "native hardwood trees" planted to protect the stream. So we were able to come to an agreement on everything and now have a security deposit into the county and they have agreed to give us our permit back. NO the trees are not planted yet, we are still getting quotes for the trees and the planting of the trees.
When our builder was notified that they were pulling his permit he had asked them how they could do such a thing when the permit was signed off by someone within their department...their response was, "We can do anything, we are the governement." Hmmmm...is all we can say about that. No county department has taken responsibility for a ball that was dropped five years ago on these permits or the tree planting and I doubt anyone will take responsibilty. So with that said, to all of our little peeps...DO YOUR HOMEWORK!! DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!
All for now, will update with progress to the place starting next week...we hope.
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