(Part 1) To Platt or Not to Platt . . .

That is the question. Since buying this property in 2012 there has been a continual stream of twists and turns along the way to building our home. One of the biggest turns, I'd even venture to say a road block at times, was the news that our lot is not platted.

If you're like me, you may have heard of the term "platted," and just kind of glazed over it. In context it always made sense, but I never had to think too hard about it. But when you're on the phone with a senior zoning official to find out if you can live in a 5th wheel on your property during construction and he says, out of the blue, something like "just so you know, this lot isn't platted, and any new dwelling will trigger the platting process," you suddenly crave absolute clarity.

As it turns out, Lazy Fox is a "metes and bounds" property (to learn more about this titillating topic, click here). Essentially, this means that the property description is a relic from another time; most lots in town are platted, but when our property was annexed into the city from the county, probably in the 1980's, it was never indoctrinated with this city process. To get a property platted, an engineering firm conducts a survey and some simple reports, and then it goes before city council. Whatever the city deems as necessary improvements to the lot need to be done, and the property is given its official name like "Mizia sub-division yadda yadda yadda."

Isn't this stuff awesome! This is a topographical survey of the house at Lazy Fox. Yeah, I'm hurting for photos this post.

Having worked in the government, albeit on a volunteer basis, my experience has been that taking things before city council can take forreeevvveerrrrrr. And a day. We've already been at the process way longer than we had hoped, so the prospect of adding weeks or months to our timeline is unbearable. Add to that the costs for the engineering work and any improvements we'd need, and it starts to feel like "the man" blocking our way is more of a Goliath.

When we first got the news of how deconstructing the house and building a new one would trigger platting, we had to stop with our original design of a new two story house. We changed course with our architect. In a cute little twist of irony, the additional architectural fees amounted to what platting the lot would have cost. But in all honesty, the new split level ranch design is far more exciting to me than our two story home ever was. While it hurts our wallet that we had to arrive at this new design in such a way, I am relieved and thrilled that we landed on a design that feels so much better. So the decision is not to platt, or so it was . . . stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.