Hill House

As posted previously, we’ve decided to file for an adjustment to our allowed height limit.  Technically, our house is now shorter by 12″, but the overall design has changed just enough the city doesn’t feel they have approved what we were proposing to build.  A neighbor of ours, after receiving the adjustment in the mail suggested we all get together, have a glass of wine and discuss.  We thought that sounded like a fine idea.

The meeting happened during one of our hottest days this summer.  The temperature was around 106 degrees at 6 p.m.  We arrived at our neighbor’s house, were shuffled through the house, handed a glass of wine and ended up on their back deck looking down over our lot.  There were approximately 15 people there included us.  It was nice to see such a concerned group of people taking care of their neighborhood.  After a brief explanation of our design, what we planned to do and what the city was requiring, everyone was happy.  The meeting moved to another neighbor’s house (they had AC) and proceeded into the evening and proved to be a great time.

If anyone is planning on asking for an adjustment, I highly recommend being proactive and discussing your intentions with your neighbors.  Our adjustment closes today at 5:00 p.m. and, knock on wood, we have had no comments – which makes the process move much faster.

While permitting has been going on, I’ve been securing bids and pricing for everything.  I hope to provide some detailed information in the next post about how the costs are looking as well as discuss the possible GC options we’re entertaining.

We submitted for permit June 30th, just in time.  Permitting fees went up July 1st.  The victory was short lived.  We were hit yesterday with our first permitting snag.  Our current design is 3′ over the allowed height limit.  Now, this is where it gets complicated.  We already applied for an adjustment to the height limit and were granted approval.  This approved a total building height of 37′ plus a ‘bump up’ light monitor for a total of 41′.

Through the design process with the engineers, the house design altered a little from the time we were granted our approval.  Our current design stands at 40′ for the building height and no ‘bump up’ light monitor.  This is an interesting point.  Even though we are technically under our height limit, the approved ‘design’ is different.  To compound the problem, the other bureaus will not receive our plans for review until the height issue is resolved…it’s a serious bummer.  To get our plans in front of the structural reviewer (which in my opinion is the most important one here) we either need to apply for another height adjustment, or we need to change the design of the house to be 3′ lower.

We decided it would actually be quickest and least expensive to file for another height adjustment.  The adjustment is now $1,027, up from a few months ago when it was $800.  The one saving grace is the ADU adjustment we filed for but did not need will refund $690 back to us.  We’ll apply for the adjustment next Monday and the plans will then be routed to the other bureaus for review.

While all of this is going on, we’ve started to send our project components out to bid.  I’m going to act as GC on our project, but will hire a project manager to make sure things are progressing on a day to day basis.  I’ll post again about this topic in more detail as we don’t have all the ins and outs ironed out yet.  The big picture with this approach is that I’m taking as much responsibility, purchasing mark-up and management away from a typical GC to avoid the additional fees associated with a standard GC approach.  I’m comfortable with this approach as I have a fair amount of experience doing this, it gives me the most controld and ultimately, when issues arise, I’ll have nobody to blame but myself.  Mike in Seattle is at a very similar stage in his project and just wrote a fantastic post on his House by the Park blog about his experience deciding on using a GC or going with a design/build firm – It’s great information.

Finally in for permit today.  Just in time.  Permitting fees go up tomorrow all across the board.  Really hard to imagine why fees are increasing at the same time the City is letting staff go amongst a recession.  I digress.

During the past few weeks, we’ve been busy focusing on the permitting push as well as buttoning up some other unknowns.  As I get my head above water during the next week I’ll try and dedicate some specific posts about costs accrued to date, our great meeting with Jonathan Cohen from Imagine Energy, who I would recommend to anyone with a new house or an old house, and more detailed finish materials, appliances, plumbing fixtures, etc.

Also – Seed was featured in the July issue of Oregon Home as well as Portland monthly.  Click here to read the Portland Monthly article.