The same cannot be said of the parts of the process involving government. The last couple of days have brought on a few more issues, one in particular for which I needed some type of outlet. I'm going to start at the beginning. to air out my frustrations. One caveat is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We are insulated from most of the problems by our builder. I'm sure if he wrote this post it would be about 100 times as long.
We first submitted for permits back in March. Our home is completely custom so we expected that it would take a little extra time to get approvals as compared to a spec home. What we didn't expect is a building inspector that didn't know the 2011 code forward and back. Our builder, Joe, had to stay up late many nights researching the code to prove to this guy that our house was built to code. Shouldn't the onus be on the inspector to know this, not our builder? What are our tax payer dollars going towards? Permits finally came through mid June, 3 months later. We had been hoping for at most 1 1/2 months.
When it came time to pay for the permits, I knew that it was going to be around $30,000. I was shocked when I received the breakdown though. The vast majority of the fees were actually just taxes. Taxes for a new home in a place that I've lived for over 10 years. Here is the breakdown:
Obviously this is subject to interpretation. My definition of a tax will be someone else's definition of a fee.
$3912.50 went towards actual permits.
$375. 59 towards state taxes.
$24,048 towards city/regional taxes/development.
If the permits weren't frustrating enough, now we get to deal with all the little napoleons in the city departments.
Following are two of the most recent issues.
This Monday, the building inspector was supposed to come out and check the shear panels so we could start roofing and siding. We're on a ticking time bomb here to get this house protected before the rains start. I don't want a moldy home! The building inspector came out and left right away because he couldn't find the plans. They were right inside the door! He didn't even bother to call Joe and ask him where they were.
This next issue is the one that gets me the most. One of the city water guys, a guy named Lonnie, came out to check the water meter and wasn't happy with how Joe had hooked up the temporary water supply. Now, the first thing to understand is that Joe hooked it up on the residential side, not on the city side. He just hadn't hooked it far enough away from the meter. Lonnie not only shut the water off, he also took Joe's hose and water bib (private property) and charged Joe $150. When Joe called to complain, Lonnie accused him of water meter tampering. When Joe asked about getting his private property back, Lonnie said, "Well, why don't you just call the police then.", and hung up on Joe. Really mature. When Joe called back later, the lady on the phone said, "Oh, you're the water meter tamperer.". Nice.
The thing that frustrates me about all this is that there isn't much recourse. Yes, we could probably complain to a superior or even to the city council, but who are we kidding? Will they actually do anything? Not only that, but we all know that this will just have further repercussions on Joe in his future jobs around town. Whistle blowers get all the fame in the private sector, but vilified in the public sector.
Don't get me wrong, I feel so blessed and excited to have this new home. When I was saying my prayers Tuesday night, after Jacob told me about this I was just praying for peace and forgiveness for these people. The Lord did bless me with that peace, but I still have the desire to change the system that leads to this kind of frustration. Is it any wonder that progress is so stifled in this country.
