Moving building envelopes

Building Envelopes

For those unfamiliar with this term, "building envelopes," this is the area on which the land owner may legally build structures. Typically, setbacks from property lines and environmentally sensitive areas are the only factors that go into deciding where an owner may not build. In Marin county when a parcel is created (via land division) the plan must include locations for all future structures, roads, utilities and septic leach fields. These areas may be significantly more restrictive than the setbacks would dictate. This was the case for us – out of the roughly 6 acres of land we purchased, less than 10% was designated as buildable.

Our building envelopes are currently set in a heavily-wooded area of our property. Even though the location had previously been approved, we would still need to get permission from the county to remove more than 30 trees to make room for the home.

We hired arborists to look at the trees we assumed would have to be removed. Most of the trees are mature, but less significant species (bay laurel and tanoaks). Most of the tanoaks on our property are infected with sudden oak death, so they are either already dead or dying.

These fungal cankers are a sure sign of infection

Our primary concern was for two particular trees:  a coastal live oak and a mature douglas fir tree. These trees are environmentally significant and also quite beautiful. The footprint of the house could just barely fit between the two trees, but arborists confirmed our fear that excavating near the trees might destabilize the roots and destroy the tree. If we do build in close proximity to the trees we will have to engineer a more expensive foundation that mitigates any risk of severing structural roots.

Proposing Change

Initially, our county planner informed us that it would be unwise to attempt to change the location of the building envelopes because it would reopen contentious discussions with the community about the original subdividing of the land.  We had up until now assumed that there was no possibility of having the location changed, but I went back to the planner to make a case for the change.

Again, I was warned by our planner that the process to change the building envelopes is very involved and costly because the existing building envelopes are tied to the originating permits granted with the land division. In order to move the envelopes we would have to apply to amend the coastal permit, land division permit, and precise development plan. This necessitates numerous studies, approvals from a variety of different governmental agencies, and a hearing with the commission where the public would comment on your project. I was told the cost could range from $4,000 to over $30,000 just in permitting costs (not factoring the studies and reports from 3rd-party consultants).

The problem with working with the Planning Department is that they never seem to give you a definitive answer until you submit a formal application. Even after paying for another general consult meeting, it was not clear how the process would work, nor how likely it was the county would grant us a waiver.  Our planner suggested that we submit a complete application for building permits on the proposed building envelopes – even before they had been approved.  The full application process involves a laundry list of studies and documentation to prepare:

1. Site plan
2. Grading plan
3. Drainage plan
4. Utilities plan
5. Septic system plan
6. Development envelopes
7. Staking plan
8. Project information
9. Floor plans
10. Building elevations
11. Building cross sections
12. Materials, colors, and details
13. Landscape plan
14. Vegetation management plan
15. Preliminary title report
16. Operational characteristics
17. Evidence of water supply

The level of detail required to submit a complete application would require us to complete the Schematic Design process with Blu Homes. Blu warned us that if our application was not approved for the new location, we would have to restart the design phase and pay an additional $23,000+ for new plans. I've never been able to grasp why it takes so much work to take the same house and move it roughly 100 feet, but Blu insists that's the case. Seems like that defeats the value of a prefabricated design if so much custom work is involved in creating the schematic designs. Again, what do I know?

So our current plan is to do what's called a pre-application. This process involves submitting a proposal to all the departments and organizations who would ordinarily review your full application to get comments. The purpose is to get some initial feedback before you submit the complete permit application. As with all reviews of this nature, the applicant pays for each reviewer's time. In this case, the pre-application process requires a $3,700 deposit. I'm not clear how much of this effort and cost (if any) can be applied to the full application process, but at least we risk less money and time before finding out the likelihood of approval.

Making the Case

We have begun the process by calling a local biologist to survey the species of plants and animals, comparing both locations and determining the risk of ecological impact. As expected, we determined that the existing location poses a greater risk to sensitive species than the proposed location does. That's good news!

Next step is to get a follow-up geological analysis done to check the quality of the soils between the two locations. This is done to evaluate drainage qualities, the seismic stability, and determine foundation designs.

Assuming no problems surface in that process, we can move forward with the design on the new location. We will eventually have to bring back our septic system engineer and arborist to evaluate the new location, but I don't anticipate any big risks in those areas.  We will also be working with our neighbors to make sure we have their full support for the move. We want to eliminate any reason for the county to reject our proposal.