getting set to build

[MountainDon]

I don't mean to appear hard hearted, but...  It hurts when you want to join them, and I would not want to find myself facing those things if I was looking. I feel for altaoaks and anyone else facing fees that are designed to keep folks out.

However, I can understand the desire to limit development. It's one of the reasons we bought more land than we actually feel we need for what we want to do in our mountains. And also why I would like to own even more land, but don't want to have just land and no money left over for a cabin and other things. So we had to draw the line somewhere. But we also have a right of first refusal on the land next to us.

[John Raabe]

This is a very natural human brain effect... It's called the "lifeboat perspective".

Imagine you are on the Titanic and you know it's headed down. You can have two different perspectives depending on where you sit.

- If you are in the lifeboat and there are already folks in it, you don't want anyone else for fear that the it could endanger your safety. It looks crowded.
- If you are standing on the deck looking to get in the lifeboat, you see no problem with more people getting in that big boat.
- And, as soon as you get in, your perspective changes.

This is same thing is going on the island that I live on. The most adamant "no-growthers" are the most recent immigrants who want to pull up the drawbridge now that they have gotten aboard.

[wildcottonroad]

I know what happened to that house.

It was built in Surprise, Arizona.

"Surprise!  Your house is now worthless!  Betcha didn't see that coming!".

OK, bad joke.

CNN Money did an article last year on how cheap some homes had gotten.  Some where available for $1000 or less.  http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/08/real_estate/thousand_dollar_homes/index.htm. 

But I digress.  altaoaks I still think you should dig deeper into those fees and really try to find out what's going on.  If they truly do charge that outrageous amount for a simple building permit, I would hate to see the annual taxes or other "living expenses" the town/county imposes.  You may find it's cheaper in the long run to take a loss on the property now and move to the next county/town over.

I feel your frustration.  I would fall over myself.  But then they'd probably charge me a fallover fee. 

Not to drag this on, but a buddy of mine just bought a place in Surprise.  just under 2000 Sq ft, three large bedrooms, one small one and three baths.  Last time it was bought (in 2006...go figure) it went for about $240K.  He bought for a little over $70K.  They are going to use it for a vacation home.

[h0rizon]

This is a very natural human brain effect... It's called the "lifeboat perspective".

Very good analogy John, I think it fits perfectly here.  I can see both sides of this as well, my parents cringed when they saw a neighbor build a house on the property next to them.  Granted it was half a mile up the road but they still felt like they were getting crowded and they were nervous about what the neighbors would be like.

I guess my perspective is, if you already own the land then you should do what you can to make use of it.  It's free to ask questions, but it could be costly to sell and move elsewhere.  But you are all correct, it may very well be a futile effort and time wasted.  I didn't mean to push alta in the wrong direction.

Not to drag this on, but a buddy of mine just bought a place in Surprise.  just under 2000 Sq ft, three large bedrooms, one small one and three baths.  Last time it was bought (in 2006...go figure) it went for about $240K.  He bought for a little over $70K.  They are going to use it for a vacation home.

That's probably a very wise investment.  When properties like this suddenly drop sharply in price, investors tend to swoop in and buy up property.  They fix it up and rent it out cheap which draws people back into the neighborhoods.  Once the area is re-established they may choose to dump the property for large-sum profit.  I bet the area will have new life breathed into it in about 5 years. 

Just a thought; your buddy might want to invest in a good security system if one is not already installed.  With so many vacant/distressed homes in an upscale neighborhood, they are ripe for thieves.  That should also reduce insurance costs.

[altaoaks]

i also see both sides, the perspective by john, and the perspective by me (of course). 

i dont know the population of Alta, but i highly doubt that its more than 1000.  there is a little elementry school shared by both alta and dutch flat.  there is a post office, and a sort of a deli/merchantile where it seems everyone goes to hang out and chat but its not open much.  and thats all folks!  no grocery store, no gas station, no quaint little shops.  if you have  a need you either drive 45 minutes to truckie, an hour to tahoe, or 30 minutes down the hill to colfax or auburn.  big cities are a good hour down to sacramento, and a good hour up to reno.

i have difficulty seeing the over-crowding problem in this neck of the woods as you would have a tough time finding a "lot" for sale, and really a tough time finding less than 2 1/2 acres, most properties for sale around alta are 5 to 11 acres.  yes, i see why the status quo would strive to maintain that, but if you have acres of land around you, neighbors wont be under your nose.

i just feel that many rural counties have the same situation as this, and they need more of a tax base and enough people to sustain the area and schools, maybe to get a library and a gas station, and support your community.  this attitude works for tahoe, but not for alta, or dutch flat, or blue canyon, or frum forebay, any of the little micro communities around that area.

there should be some serious no-growth around lake tahoe.  we are pretty far from the rowes.

[Junque]

I am in the process of building (owner-builder) a home on the Oregon Coast.  Before deciding what to build, we did a lot of thinking 'outside the box' and considered all alternatives, from yurts to containers to pre-fab, etc.  In researching permits for a container building, a local contractor who specializes in them related how he built a home in Santa Cruz, CA for a couple.  Their container home had living space totalling about 2,000 s.f. (additional space was storage and garage) and the permits were over $50,000!!!  JUST the permits!!! He would also have to process a variance which would take upwards of 6 months to process!     Permits for our home will total less than $2,000 and that's for total living space of nearly 3,000 s.f.  (So much for the small house concept we started with!)  But this will house more than one family and provide flexibility that a 'normal' house would not.

We had hoped to build a primary structure housing gathering space, kitchen, pantries and 'future space' in the attic with separate cottages or 'cabins' nearby... much like was suggested earlier.  Land Use regulations consider these to be 'accessory' buildings and those that are under 200 s.f. need no permits.  HOWEVER, we found out later that if they are to be occupied they MUST have permits, be built to code and inspected.  So, we have modified our original permit to include those buildings.  

Our big bite here is that there are no hydrants nearby and we are having to put in a a residential fire sprinkler system.  We are fortunate to have incredibly knowlegeable and supportive officials at the county to help us through this whole process.

I am interested in hearing what you finally decide to do.  The garage conversion sounds like a great idea to me!  Garage on the main level and 'shop' with bath on the second!  

Good luck!

[Squirl]

  Junque

[altaoaks]

Hi Junque, WOW!  $50,000.  even higher than in Placer county.  if our build is over 2000sq ft the permit doubles, and over 3000 sq ft goes up again.  i think as near as i could figure a 3000 sq ft home would be between $40,000 and $45,000.  so its pretty crazy.

i dont know what we are doing yet.  im thinking smart would be to pay off the land, and either keep it as the taxes arent to high, or wait until the market improves and sell.  in any event we may seriously look at buying another peice of land somewhere that is not commiting legal robbery.

i think when you go out and buy your first piece of land, you never consider that building permit fees could be higher than what you expected your entire build to be.  these counties should come with a warning label, BEWARE! THE FEES MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR POCKETBOOK AND LIFESTYLE.

now i know, and would tell everybody, do not take anything for granted, costs vary widely county to county.  i think starting a thread in the land section where everyone chimes in to give koodos to areas with fair permits and taxes, and huge warnings in areas where you will not get a fair shake.

so it sounds like you are pretty far along with your project.  any pictures for us?  sounds like your county makes sure financially you cant do small multiple builds, and thats to bad.  but it also sounds like its all working out for you in the long run, and it will probably be a better result.

best of luck to you, and thanks for letting me know about santa cruz county.  at least i know im not alone in the miserable fee department.

[Hi Road]

altaoaks,

John hit it the nail on the head. Some times you "have to know when to hold'em and when to fold'emm".  As I sit hear with my family in front of a warm fireplace in the Northwest on this 14 degree night waiting for the new years to come in I look back at the decisions I have made over the last 63 years.  By far the best decision was to leave California.   You plight while trying to build at Alta is exactly why we moved out of California.   

We had a family ranch in Angels Camp (about 70 miles SW, the way a crow flies from Alta) that was literally being surrounded by government decisions.  All but a few in county government were known to me personally and few were kids I went to school with.  I lost my connection.  I felt like a stranger in my own hometown.  Our house was built during the gold rush period in California without a concrete perimeter foundation about 1860.  It was on a post and beam foundation.  We were going to rebuild when I inherited the place but after trying to work things out with the county they just about put a "Do Not Occupy" poster on the place.  Now mind you that this house had been occupied for over a 125 years at that time.  

I don't know how anybody can afford to live in a state where the largest business is the government.  There are over 38 million people living in California.  We left.  Unlike many I am in the boat that John described but am more than willing to scoot over and invite you aboard.
 

Good Luck and Happy New Year

[altaoaks]

I'm with you in that Hi Road!  I'm thinking i just need to find the top of a mountain somewhere that to GOVT men can't get to, and where the "county" men don't care, and where someone could just find some peace on their own little piece of heaven.  i just object to all of the money-grabbing oversight.  i don't want much, just the impossible!  can dreams come true? 

Where are you located now, if i may ask?  did you find peace from oversight?  Tennessee is sounding good.  I was born in NM. (and homesick). and i guess i had better think about at least 20 acres, then they at least have to work at seeing what im doing on my own land!

[MushCreek]

I can't believe some of these permit fees. They're basically saying, "Unless you're rich, don't plan on building here." $50K would put me right out of the market. We were told our permits in SC will be 'several hundred dollars'. As near as I can calculate, it will be around $400 for our house.

[cmsilvay]

I can't believe some of these permit fees. They're basically saying, "Unless you're rich, don't plan on building here." $50K would put me right out of the market. We were told our permits in SC will be 'several hundred dollars'. As near as I can calculate, it will be around $400 for our house.

But a "rich person's" house would be much larger and have more "toys". What I don't understand is they seem to be discriminating against a large part of the population. It would be on thing if this was private land and the development had rules but this is public land.
I spent most of my life in NJ and you needed a permit for everything. When we moved to OK and started our little adventure I was happily surprised when I was my question about permits was answered by the question whats a permit?

[Don_P]

Although I do believe there is alot of truth to what John said about closing the door behind themselves when people move "to the country", there are other ways this has been handled besides through fees. Building moratoriums and minimum lot sizes are a couple of other methods I've seen used. High fees sound an awful lot like keeping the po folk out. From a county's perspective though there is something to be said for that, for instance, ummm, how to put this as gracefully as possible, "mobile mansion refuse" are a dead loss to a county. They have very little property value to tax and typically use more school, police, fire and social services than those meager taxes can cover. None of that was PC but there it is. If they can pre screen newcomers and filter out the common folk in favor of the affluent they are money ahead in every way.

We have places in the county here that developers have wanted to put subdivisions in. A couple of places I can recall were remote from services and had bad access. The county zoning board refused to allow the use which was one way of dealing with it. Another would be to allow it but force them to pay for improving the roads for the traffic flow, increased sherriff's patrols, more brush trucks for the fire depts, etc. Since I am already here I would not want to pay an increase in my taxes to cover these people's increased need for services beyond what their taxes would cover. Across the road from me a fellow is putting in an illegal subdivision, I'm not sure how it will shake out. He lightly logged a large steep tract of land, thus his "logging roads" are the subdivision roads, one way of sneaking them in. He then divided the tract into lots that are above the minimum size, clearing that hurdle. The roads are steep and poor for traffic, the entrance sightlines are too short by road standards, the county road is too small for what would be the traffic count, there is inadequate power supply to the area to carry the load and there is no redundancy at this end of the line, which is me. When they need to upgrade I stand to lose land to the road and to the utilities through condemnation to support his development. But then I might get to go to work right across the road and if so might have some input on house placements that would harm my views less. There's almost always a few ways of looking at things  .

[altaoaks]

placer county has quite a mix of very poor, lower-middle-and upper middle class, and very wealthy.  however i think these ludicrous fees are a result of poor financial management hence the need for an influx of $$$$$.  i see it as a fund-raiser.  they dont seem to wish to keep people out, in fact they seem quite welcoming.  even at the building department they were very easy going as far as blueprints go; no wet-stamp needed, no need under most circumstances to have anything special engineered, very casual about the blueprints, really far more workable than i expected given this is california with the most stringent requirements for everything!

the more people move into some of the out-lying areas the better their tax base is, and it would be a very long time before placer became over-crowded.  tahoe is very crowded, but everything else is really rural.

but the amount of the additional user fees are mind-boggling.  the thought of some counties charging only $400 is also mind-boggling.  i would be grinning from ear to ear.

[altaoaks]

Hi everyone, i've been around and peeking in on the forum news, but not posting much.  My concentration has been focused on paying off my land.  I'm getting closer to that goal.  I'm giong to post some pics soon.  I hope my low tech self can figure out how to do that, ok. I admit it, I am intimadated by this photobucket thing!

In the meantime, just venting...I drove up to my land 2 weeks ago and caught the next door neighbors cutting firewood, and they cut in most every area of my 2 1/2 acres.  They left the slash for me.  I was furious. 

They indicated that they had bought the land and cabin next door.  The thought was overwhelming, having a permenant neighbor who cuts down my trees, and worse, turns his area into a junk yard.  I also had to drive through piles of construction debries, traliers, and trash on both sides of my easement road to get onto my property.  more insulting, it starts along my property line so i have to look at it.

Well, he admitted he was in the wrong, and promised he would never cut on my property again.  That is a start, but it doesnt fix the junk yard issue.  What to do?

I checked the tax assessors office, they didnt buy the property ...WHEW!  dodged a bullet there.  they are renting through a property mgmt company.  I found out the "neighbors" moved onto that land when it went into forclosure and was empty.  Then when it was bought on the courthouse steps, they convinced the new owners they were long term tenants.  With that, they became renters!  So I have set the record straight, they were squatters, and now they are rapidly growing a junk yard there.  Its somewhat remote, and i guess the owners haven't been back to the property since july, 2010 when they took possession.  They will now, and I will be their pain in the ass until they deal with it.

Due to all of that, I am going to get fencing going this spring, sooner if the snow lets us???  So I looked at tube gates, I have a choice between a 12' or a 16' gate, any suggestions or advice on this?  Do i need a 16' for construction purposes?

I had intended to get the pump on the well this summer, but somehow the fence just seems so much more important now.  Good fences make good neighbors!  (these folks will never be good neighbors)

I'll get photos up in the next week or so, until then, peace!

[Danfish]

Sorry to hear about your neighbor problem, but may be an opportunity to get back some of the costs of doing business in Placer county.  County codes most likely contain provisions for dealing with the junk nuisance.  Probably best to start a dialog with the actual property owner (landlord)...sounds like the "renter" is someone to handle carefully.

[Buckeye]

Around here cutting someone else's trees is theft...plain and simple. You should be reimbursed the value of that timber.

[altaoaks]

Hi Buckeye and Danfish, yep!  it is theft, and i should called the sheriffs out and made the police report, but at the moment it happen i was so shocked to find him there doing that it just didnt cross my mind.  i am absolutely going through the mgmt company to put pressure on the owners to deal with the situation.

thats a thought, i'll check and see if there is a nuisence law there i could additionally persue.  wish i could get some of those fees covered, but it would be a long civil suit against the tenent who doesnt really have a pot to piss in, sorry to be so blunt.  he doesnt have a "job", just does odd construction stuff and not much of that. 

as a matter of fact this past october i spotted a pot growing operation along his cabin.  so if i cant get things settled in a nice way, i could wait until his crop is planted and call in the feds.  about 70' from his cabin is BLM land.  I had thought it was Pacific Gas $ Electric, and they do have control of that 160 acres, but it belongs to BLM!

I really dont care one way or the other if he is growing pot, you know how it goes in CA.  You get a grow card and can legally grow X number of plants, which varies from county to county.  But federal law trumps Calif. law, and its getting totally out ou control.  if you live in the mountains anywhere in calif. you have multiple neighbors all growning weed for a living.  It can get a little dicey what with these people trying to protect their investments.  I just want to protect my property!

[Don_P]

Timber trespass here is triple damages and they can work from the stumps.

[altaoaks]

I now know absolutely that my nuisence "neighbors" are just renters, former squatters made legitemate!  I also know that the property management company I contacted IS the owner of the cabin property next door.  I didnt want to make lifelong enemies of this guy if we were homeowners, thus close proximity neighbors.  Now that I know fully what i'm dealing with, NO PROBLEM!  I will definately make a call to the sheriffs department with any reason now.  The gloves are off!

So I am still waiting to hear the outcome, the owner did view my photos of his "junkyard" cabin property, and i understand he drove up their and spoke with his tenants the same day.  I am hoping its going to be good news, and if i have to call and make a sheriffs report on these people, my second call will be to the owner!  What is it they say, the noisy wheel gets oiled!  i'm looking for a lot of oil!

So i'm making calls today to see what its going to cost me to get a surveyer in to find the lower property marker.  That is my next move, then the "good neighbor" fence!  I want, at the very least, a gate up yesterday.

more news to follow, and i will get those pics up soon, i hope minus the junk piled up at my easement!

[Squirl]

Crimes such as theft and trespass generally have a statute of limitations of years not days.  The time lapsed should not be a hindrance to the authorities.

The problem is, people like this have already demonstrated they have no regard for the law or personal property rights.  Usually those type of people have already spent some time in jail or will frequently throughout their lives, so it is not much of a deterrent.

[altaoaks]

Squirl, you speak the truth!  But I hope that the threat of relentlesly not backing down will be a deterint.  Also, I hope the illegal activity over there will cause the owner to consider that his property could be siezed, especially if it could be shown he knew the tenants were conducting ilegal activity?  Maybe its wrong, but I dont care where they do what they do, as long as they do it somewhere else!

Its only been just over 2 weeks, so I could still make that sheriffs report.  The slash is all across my land, and the cuts are fresh.  They didnt take any big timber, just what came down in the storms, and also a number of branches here and there that hadnt fallen, but they thinned out much of my property where it should have been my choice if i wanted the tree branches or clusters of pines thinned.

I have a surveyer going up tomorrow (Wednesday) to see if he can find the fourth corner marker.  if not, we get started on that right away.

Any advice from you seasoned folks on the gate size?  Is 12' big enough for construction purposes, or should i go with a 16' gate?  any imput would be appreciated.

[Redoverfarm]

Any advice from you seasoned folks on the gate size?  Is 12' big enough for construction purposes, or should i go with a 16' gate?  any imput would be appreciated.

It just depends on the location of the gate.  If it is a straight approach through the gap then 12' should be sufficent.  Although if there is a turn on either side of the gap then I would go with 14-16'.  I have one myself ( turn on one side) which is fine with either the truck or tractor by itself but add an impliment or trailer and it is a tight fit. 

[rick91351]

I agree with John a 16 foot.   I chose to to go with a 10 and a 12.  It is easier on the gate posts.  I can just open the 12 and run the pick-up truck and the four wheelers and car in and out of there all day.  But if I have my stock trailer or flatbed, or my renter is in and out of there with the gooseneck trailers moving cattle.  Or so it seems once or twice a year a load of logs or a lowboy with a crawler or a excavator we can open it up wide.

Because two eights would be easier on the gate posts.  I think I would think about going that route.  A sixteen foot gate even a cheap light weight one hung out there is a heck a strain of the years.  Unless you block up the end to give it something to rest on.   



 

[MountainDon]

My limited experience with gates is that most of them sag a little over time; either the post moves a little or the gate itself sags. What I'm getting at is that the outboard end should have a place to rest its weight on; ours does. And the wider the gate the worse that can get. Just something to keep in mind.