Frustrations

You know of course that no weekend could be as productive as last weekend.... which has got me wondering, "Why am I so tired right now?"

I vaguely remember waking up from a bad dream last night - and although I can't remember the dream, I have a feeling it may have been Historical Commission related, or at least Historical Commission induced.

All weekend I felt stressed - for no particular reason I could figure out. Just a little of that dreaded free floating anxiety.... And I really believe it's all due to this upcoming meeting.

I'll catch you up if you've fallen behind - a new Demolition/Alteration bylaw requires us to appear before the Historical Commission before we can get our farmer's porch permit approved. That's the short of it. The stress of it is - Andersons. They're our neighbors and they don't like us. And they like to share their dislike of my husband and I (and our house) at public forums. Like this upcoming Historical meeting.

There's this little worried voice in my head that even worries about this blog. I mean, you can pretty much figure out who we are, what our address is, etc etc if you just put a few pieces together. And the pics don't lie either. Those Andersons could be reading this very sentence right now... as unlikely as that is. They're older and don't seem like the tech-savy type. But you never know.

And I realize that's probably silly. What could they say anyway? A farmer's porch is unhistorical? It's ruining the neighborhood? I can't even imagine...

I've got a girl friend (not a girlfriend, mind you) who's already got her farmer's porch half done. Sans permit. I'm so jealous I can't see straight. My carpenter and good friend TJ assures me that we'll get started ASAP once our permit goes through. And why am I in such a hurry - it's not even warm enough to go out and sit on it yet!

This is just all the mental madness I'm going through right now and it's exhausting.

That's why Mike is going to the meeting without me - I get waaay too mental if and when sh*t hits the historical fan.

Historical Shimishtorical

Mike and I got a letter from the Town on Wednesday. And for a split second, I imagined that our permit had arrived already - sans Conservation Commission.

When we opened it, we were shocked to discover that it came from the Historical Commission. Some Demolition Delay Bylaw would require us to pay $50 and appear before the Historical Commission - because our house is nearly 100 years old.

I was raging mad. First off - no demolition of any kind was in our permit. This was simply the addition of a farmer's porch - simple stuff, people! Second off, we hadn't gone through this when we lifted the entire house to put a foundation underneath... why was this project subject to this bylaw?!

And besides that - it's another $50 - so the Historical Commission can notify all my neighbors and everyone else in town via the newspaper. (And who reads that anymore anyway, but that's another blog.) So I have to pay another $50 on top of the $25 for the permit and another $50 because I'll probably still have to go through the conservation commission.

If that weren't enough, guess when the meeting is? 10am on a Tuesday. WTF!? So now, my husband has to miss work - lose pay - all in addition to paying the $50, I mean, $125.... At least the Conservation meetings are in the evening.

So Mike and I got into a huge argument. (We don't usually have arguments, so when I say huge argument - I mean we were just both pissed off.) At one point I said, "We didn't buy into any historical society and if we can't do what we want to this house - we're moving and I don't care."

I mean, we were pissed. And right there and then (at 10:00 at night mide you) I left a frantic and probably bitchy message on the town voicemail.

The next morning, however, a very nice woman called me back. In my psychoticness, I left the message on the wrong voicemail. (Well, they sent me the wrong business card, so partially not my fault, but I should have checked.)

Anyway, this woman was sooo nice. She explained that the law was created in just the past year or so, because of all the old buildings that were being just torn down in Bourne - without anyone saying anything about it. And I knew that to be true. I knew of a couple on my own street, in fact.

Urg... I hate to admit it, but I agree with the bylaw... having worked for the last almost 4 years to restore a historic Bourne home that probably would have been just bulldozed otherwise. And even though it's called a "Demolition" Bylaw - there's some stupid sentence somewhere in there that makes reference to the alteration to the exterior of the property... hence - our invitation to the commission review.

But I'm still not happy about the $50 and the Tuesday, 10am meeting. And I wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't have to go through the whole thing again with Conservation.

AND - with this "Demolition" notice being sent to my neighbors, they're going to think I'm tearing down my house or something!! That's probably going to get the Andersons up in a tizzy. I'm sure they'll show up at the meeting and claim that we're ruining a historical blah blah blah... Aholes.

I get so frustrated. But as I said, I do happen to agree with this bylaw. The nice town woman assured me that I probably wouldn't have any problems.... though she doesn't know about the Andersons. Plus, they're an old Bourne family who just love to throw their weighty opinions out in the open. And they may be politically connected as well.

I'm sooo nervous. And I'll be sweating it out for a couple weeks until the meeting.

The Deed Is Done

Well, I did it. Just this morning I dropped off the permit app and all related plans down at the town hall. Now we get to play the waiting game. It'll probably be a couple weeks before we get the call from Conservation. And after that we'll have to wait for the next hearing, which may be a couple more weeks.

Wouldn't it just kick butt if conservation didn't notice the river across the street? Or maybe the law has changed so that you can complete small projects on pre-existing structures without dealing with the red tape of conservation. I mean, they're only going to make me put up some hay bales! So I wait weeks and weeks for they to tell me that in some ridiculous public forum meeting, for which I have to alert all my neighbors?

Now if I was right on the ocean, or on a lake front, or on a river front - and I was doing new construction or messing with the sea wall or installing a septic - then I totally understand the purpose of Conservation.

But the thing is, we're across the street from a river. And it's not even a river - it's a dinky little herring stream. I could walk through it and barely get my ankles wet. And we're not even right on top of it! It's across the street - 100ft away. But Conservation says whenever you're less than 200 feet from a river, you must pay the ultimate price.... did I mention it's $50 just for processing of all the conservation paperwork? Talk about adding insult to injury. Not to mention you have to send all your abutters (neighbors) certified letters stating what you plan to do.

And in our case, that seems to get the Andersons up in arms. I wonder what kind of ridiculous plan they'll have for trying to stop us this time.... Thank god the rest of our neighbors are so supportive.