Meetings, bids and estimates.

This is going to be a busy week.  I am off for April vacation, and I am going to try like heck to get as much done as possible. Yesterday I went to town hall to record the sitemap, and finalized deed.  I did neither.  The sitemap needs to be a mylar copy, not paper, which is what I had. Also, I was not going to record the deed without it be "o.k'd" by the zoning official.  She was out, but I left a copy of the deed there for her review.  I am hoping to speak with her today.  On a more positive front, I signed some paperwork so that the building permit could start it's process.  The woman who works the front desk took pity on me and said in effect that since I had the deed (even though it wasn't recorded yet) she would start the process. 

Next I visited the wetlands commissioner to check up on what was going on there, and he said that he was just getting ready to send me an email to make sure that I had a "written mitigation plan" brought to the meeting next week. It also had to be written by a wetlands specialist.  Like the soil scientist that the surveyors had hired for the site work. This will cost money.  I asked him if I could write up the plan, but he hemmed and hawed, and basically said no.  He did mention some things that he did want to see in the plan, most seemed reasonable, but a couple were pretty out there in my opinion. For example:

• He said that the wetlands had been "abused" in the past and implied that he wanted the existing dog house removed from there.  (But where am I going to sleep when Teri is upset with me?)  No problem.
• Suggested that a sign be posted that this area was wetlands and that a permit was needed for any activity there.
• Which plants and "natural reconstruction" was going to occur in that part of the property.

but here is where it gets a little strange:

• Apparently, a few years back someone wood chipped a tree and left it in the wetlands, the wetlands commisioner wants us to remove the fill, but we can't use any machinery to do it.  We have to do it by wheelbarrow. (Can't disturb the wetlands...) This is strange because the septic tank is buried IN the wetlands area, and we are going to have use heavy machinery to break and fill it.  Which by the way needs to be filled with sand, which is not a wetlands soil as far as I know.
• The wetlands commissioner wants us to build a split rail fence AROUND the wetlands area.  Since the designated area is about 1/4 to 1/3 of the property, this is clearly not acceptable.  We are not going to fence off our own property like that.  We are not going to include it in our mitigation plan. Period.

Anyways, I left a messege with Ed Pawlak, the soil scientist, and I spoke with Jim from BDL excavators, a local business located on South Street in Coventry,for a bid on breaking the septic, attaching the sewer, and foundation work.  He told me that the strangeness from town hall was just beginning.  Yikes.  You would think that the town would want the additional revenue from a tax payer and would help get this stuff done instead of making us jump through hoops.  I guess I'm just naive.

Today I have a meeting with our banker and our energy efficiency consultant.  More later.

Thanks for reading!