Special Bulletin

Hello Penny Pals-

Some of you have been on board for several years now as part of the team to build “Tina’s Ark”. Today was a major milestone.

After 4 months of edits, refinements, and casual meetings with various members of the City Planning, Building, and Engineering offices, today we had the “formal meetings”. We had previously submitted 20 full sets of plans for review and felt fairly confident that we had addressed each item the City had required to this point.

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We arrived for our 3 PM meeting with the Technical Review Committee. We were told our project was on the agenda for approximately 4:30! Lots of down time. I asked if we should leave and come back in an hour. We were told to take a seat and wait to be called. Our architect, Debbie was with us. At 3:20 we were called! By 3:35 we were out of there.

Summary:

Doc and the City Engineer talked about Cal Poly Pomona experiences.

Planning said: “All is Clear to Proceed”.

Grading said: “You are cleared so far …now you need to provide a lot more”.

Engineering said: “There are a half dozen fees to pay, but then you can proceed”.

Building said: “Start working on all the other plans like electrical, plumbing, HVAC, structural, trusswork, seismic, Title 24, etc.

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The Design Review Committee meets monthly. We were on the agenda for 7:20 this evening.

We were summoned inside around 7:40. It was fun. Our project manager, Steve, (see photo) gave the committee a summary of the project. Then we were asked for input. We told them a little about our ‘dream house’ and the background of it. We asked the Committee Chair if he had any final comments. He said: “Enjoy it!” We shook hands and were leaving. I couldn’t resist. I spent a few moments telling them about Penny Finders and gave each committee member a Penny Card. Bet no one has done that before!

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For fun we headed up the street a few miles and visited our lot - just to be there under the stars and enjoy the celebration.

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Bottom Line -- We do not have to go to the Planning Commission next month. Our Proposed Project has been accepted by the City committees at this level. We are now allowed to continue developing our detailed construction plans. Once those are reviewed and approved (plus fees paid), we can obtain each of the required permits to build.

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Of course we also found numerous coins today (Day #634) and today’s Penny Finding Tale can be found on the Daily Blog.