Update on rezoning application

We got an email this week informing us our application is now complete and it can move to the next step. It's good to know that the application we submitted two years ago is now ready to move forward...

The next step is apparently some sort of meeting and public consultation, but it isn't happening until January. I guess no work happens during December. I can either fizz and fuss because of the delay, or I can see it as a reprieve from high emotion for a few weeks. I'll try to view it as a recess, a time to regroup and focus on other things for a while. Nothing to deal with until January.

I'll spend December paying attention to other things I've neglected, like the manuscript that's due next week and Christmas preparations. Hoping that by next Christmas, we will be able to have the family gathered together at the church, with a twenty-foot tree and a kitchen to cook dinner in.

A girl can dream!

Scoring boxes of books

Someone here in the city was throwing out four big boxes of paperbacks. When I heard about it, I ran out in my nightgown to rescue them from the curb. I'll bring them up to add to the Book Nook shelves. Some are bodice-rippers with the kind of covers I can't even look at, but there are some good finds in there too, including a Mitch Albom and a Malcolm Gladwell. Spending a snowy day happily combing through them.

And then kindness happens and I feel calm again

My lovely neighbour Ben has been caring for our lawn all summer while I've been mostly in the city. It has really given me peace of mind to know it was being looked after while I've been away. As one last hurrah, he and his wonderful parents went and raked the leaves for me, cleaning out the flower beds and creating an epic pile that I will compost. Many thanks to Ben for the heroic effort, and many thanks to his parents for raising such a great kid!

A month later, and yet another flip-flop

On October 13, we were told by the Planning Dept that if we got an engineer to sign off on the spray foam insulation, we could close up the walls with drywall. They even provided the name of an engineer we could contact. We confirmed this verbally and, wanting to get this done before winter, we hired yet another engineer, who signed off on everything. Great! Sent it off to the Planning Department. And now they are backpedalling and saying we still can't put up the drywall. Something confusing to do with change of use permits and inspections. The process could take a few months to get that.

Hold it. Wait. I just paid for an engineer I didn't need, on THEIR SAY-SO, and we still have to get an inspector to give the okay? I have to put the drywallers and electricians on hold yet again, when they've been waiting since March? And what on earth does a change of use have to do with drywall? We're not changing the footprint of the building. We're not adding bedrooms or turning it into condos. We're not building an opium den, here, folks. We're putting up drywall on the non-load-bearing studs we built inside the exterior walls. That doesn't take a permit, surely. You're totally allowed to maintain your property and add insulation without a permit. That's all we're trying to do. We've done that in our city house without a hitch. As of this moment, we haven't changed the use of this building. It's still a church with institutional zoning, as ever. If we hadn't applied for this rezoning, we could have just slapped up these interior walls and drywall with no permits needed at all and no one would have been the wiser or had any say about anything. It's the stupid rezoning application that is complicating everything. 

I am about three milliseconds away from yanking the whole application. Seriously, why is this so difficult? I don't mind a complicated process, but at least give me complete and accurate information so I know how to navigate it. Someone seriously needs to do up a flowchart. 

What I'm trying to figure out is how such a conservative stronghold has ended up with so much bureaucracy. I long for the old days when you could claim land, whack together a log cabin on it, and no one paid any attention to you.

Flood door approved!

The Conservation Authority has approved the use of the engineered flood door on the basement door. Now I just need to come up with the $11,000 to install it.

The other alternative is to brick it up and fill in the stairwell, but that takes away a fire egress, and I'm reluctant to do that. I can't see me as a little old lady, climbing on top of the washing machine to crawl out a window. It may not be any cheaper than the flood door, either.

Now that we have an agreement with the SCRCA, we can move to the next step in the rezoning process, whatever that may be. A road map really would be appreciated.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode...