medchic2005
New Member
My husband and I wanted to build a structure in our backyard to store our ski boat in. We approached the city planning dept with the idea of a pre-fab steel building, and they told us that we needed a planning permit because it was a temporary building. We provided a plot plan, and got our permit. However, halfway through the build we were stopped and told that we needed a building permit. We then filed the paper work, had foundation plans engineereed, etc.......But being it was a building permit now, we are supposidly encroaching on the back property line (we are 6 feet from it), and we were told we needed to apply for variance (buildings are supposed to be 15 feet from the back property line).
We had to make a presentation to the city planning commission. The meeting went terribly. It was supposed to be 30 minutes, and lasted an hour and a half. They said that they could not take into consideration financial consequences to us of having to remove the building and that they could not take into consideration the fact that we had been previously approved for the project. They tried to infer that we were dishonest with our intent to build, and the guy from the planning department that we delt with was lying. (He told the council that he thought we were building a "tuff shed" from home depot for tools). Also at first the comissioner said that we met all four criteria for variance, but then the city lawyer gave some ambiguous definition of the criteria and said that we failed. He said that there was nothing "special" about our lot that required variance. The lawyer we talked to and the engineer were both surprised that they did not pass us.
We can appeal this decision to the city counsel within 15 days. I really felt that the planning comission had an agenda to "save face" at our expense, and did not consider the fact that we had been give permission early on for the project. We are a young couple and have spent more than our budget on this project. We were contemplating hiring a lawyer to help us with this next meeting with the city council, however, we are running out of money for this project. Can anyone offer any advice on how to best deal with this situation? We have put so much time and money into this project I can't imagine having to diassemble it? But also, we can't afford to spend alot more on it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
We had to make a presentation to the city planning commission. The meeting went terribly. It was supposed to be 30 minutes, and lasted an hour and a half. They said that they could not take into consideration financial consequences to us of having to remove the building and that they could not take into consideration the fact that we had been previously approved for the project. They tried to infer that we were dishonest with our intent to build, and the guy from the planning department that we delt with was lying. (He told the council that he thought we were building a "tuff shed" from home depot for tools). Also at first the comissioner said that we met all four criteria for variance, but then the city lawyer gave some ambiguous definition of the criteria and said that we failed. He said that there was nothing "special" about our lot that required variance. The lawyer we talked to and the engineer were both surprised that they did not pass us.
We can appeal this decision to the city counsel within 15 days. I really felt that the planning comission had an agenda to "save face" at our expense, and did not consider the fact that we had been give permission early on for the project. We are a young couple and have spent more than our budget on this project. We were contemplating hiring a lawyer to help us with this next meeting with the city council, however, we are running out of money for this project. Can anyone offer any advice on how to best deal with this situation? We have put so much time and money into this project I can't imagine having to diassemble it? But also, we can't afford to spend alot more on it. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
