The house next door is just about complete now. The contractor’s foreman said they plan on scheduling the county and town inspections for the house in the next week or so. The property still has to be graded and decorative bricks need to be laid in the driveway. Once that’s done and inspected, the occupancy permit will be issued. There’s one potential problem though. The county just realized that many of the new homes built in the past few years have exceeded the height requirement (maximum of 35 feet) for residential zoning. They will grandfather houses that are already occupied, but for those awaiting final inspection, they plan on strict enforcement of the 35 foot maximum height. If the house exceeds the maximum height requirement, an occupancy permit will not be issued. Fixing the problem could run into the thousands of dollars, depending on the design of the house and the amount of rework needed to bring the house into compliance with the zoning ordinance.

The crux of the problem is that the present zoning ordinance is ambiguous about the height measurement technique. Contractors have been using the average height as the measurement; the county insists that the measurement be taken at the highest peak of the house. I can see the contractor’s sharks (aka lawyers) circling this one as I speak. And they might even win since the zoning ordinance is ambiguous and the county has been approving all the plans and drawings for these non-compliant houses for a long time now without objecting to the height.

The lower picture is of my one-story vintage late 1950’s brick rambler, which is dwarfed by the huge “McMansion” now sitting next door!