Rant and Rave

I apologize in advance for all the (justifiably) frustrated word vomit that is about to spew out of me. Brace yourself for a post where I do nothing but rant about the red tape we have encountered lately.

*Note: I had to add the ‘lately’ modifier, since this post does not address previously mentioned battles with bureaucracy, such as struggling to get a hole filled, trying to organize concrete companies, getting our historic zoning permit, getting the city’s approval, or struggling to get a plumbing permit.*

Certificate of Occupancy

Throughout this entire process, our goal has been to meet the minimum requirements for occupancy and then take a break while we live in a half finished home while not paying rent anymore. This is vital because we need a mental and physical break from this exhausting process and we are running low on available funds. Obviously our year in a van proves that we don’t need much to be comfortable. A house with no interior walls, no kitchen cabinets or counters, bare concrete and plywood floors, and basically a lack of every other finishing interior detail is still a luxury if it has a toilet and running water. Moving in would give us the opportunity to recharge, let John go back to work, and start saving up money again.

Naturally, it wasn’t meant to be. John recently met the guy who grants occupancy in Chattanooga. While he was very friendly, he did dash our dreams by telling us that he doesn’t grant occupancy without a house being totally complete. He said he has made exceptions in cases where “maybe one or two walls aren’t painted”… way further along than we ever planned to be at move-in.

So now we find ourselves in a tough spot. We desperately need a break, but now there is so much work to be done. Our hope right now is that we can argue that a kitchen without counters or cabinets, and the rough concrete floor is exactly what we want. We’re the home owners… who are they to say that’s not what we want?

The whole idea of the policy is to keep home builders from screwing over the home owners. I just wish they would make exceptions for unusual circumstances like ours.

Building Permit

Our building permit expired at the end of April. When John went to the permitting offer to extend it, he was told that apparently the building permit is a binding contract saying that we will complete construction within the 12 month period. There is a “failure to finish” penalty that costs 1% of the estimated value of the house ($2,200 based on our original proposed home value), and the opportunity to extend the permit for three more months.

Obviously, we weren’t happy with that option, so John proposed two others.

New Building Permit:

• Apply for new building permit ($969.50)
• Gain an additional 12 months to finish
• No new historic zoning approval required
• 56% cheaper than the original proposal

Increase Value:

• The length of time a building permit is issued depends on the projected value. For homes over 250k, the building permit lasts 18 months instead of 12. But increasing our projected value, we could get an extension.
• Gain an additional 6 months to finish
• Pay $108.50 based on the $30,001 home value increase
• 95% cheaper than the original proposal

In both cases, the woman he was talking to said “Oh yeah. That could work too.” Which begs the question, why weren’t these options presented in the first place?! Needless to say, we decided to increase the projected value of our home.

ROW Abandonment

Back in 2016, the purchase of our property was contingent on us getting temporary use permit of a Right of Way (ROW) where we built our driveway. We want to do some property shuffling with our neighbor and we need to build a retaining on part of the ROW. Both of these require complete ownership, so approximately 6 months ago we started looking into getting the city to abandon the ROW.

In order to even go down that road, John has been in contact with numerous organizations, because an unnecessary number of parties are involved:

• TDOT – Tennessee Department of Transportation (because ROW touches state highway)
• CDT – Chattanooga Department of Transportation (because ROW managed by city)
• GDED – Ground Disturbing and Environmental Division (because it’s sloped, even though we already have a ground disturbing permit and have already disturbed the ground)
• RPA – Regional Planning Authority (because they manage lot boundaries)

Initially, our requests were rejected off hand on the grounds that “the city might want to reopen the ROW”. After back and forth conversations, video tours of the ROW, and detailed explanations about why it would be pointless to put a road or a trail there, they finally agreed to consider the proposal. This process would still cost $350 and take at least three months to approve (or deny). So we submitted our proposal and sat back to wait…

A view of our property before we ever broke ground. The location of the ROW is the overgrown tree-filled strip of land between our lot and our neighbor’s.

The blue line shows the ROW in question. All it does is cut off a corner between Guild Trail and Ochs highway, but the city kept insisting they might want it someday. It made sense to use back when Guild Trail was only a set of railroad tracks, but there is no need for it now.

A few weeks later, we were contacted by the RPA and told that the city doesn’t even own that ROW. It is referenced as an ROW on maps and our legal deed, but apparently it was never legally created. Instead, it was a contested piece of land that four brothers sued each other over, and the judge’s ruling split it up into the neighboring lots. The most likely outcome moving forward is that it would simply be split between us and our neighbor, which is exactly what we were trying for in the first place. However, we would need to hire a land patent attorney to handle things, and it will probably cost even more and take even longer to figure out.

I feel like a lot of the rules were developed to protect home owners and to provides jobs for laborers. However, over time, these rules seem to morph into nothing but an obstacle course to be navigated.