Not Built In A Day, Part 1.5

We delivered our request for a waiver to the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) in September.  I got a phone call from a person at the agency in October looking to set up a site visit.  Devon and I decided upon a lovely day in early November.  I think he was anxious to get the visit out of the way before snowshoes were required.

Mary and I drove up early in the morning to receive our visitors by 11 am.  Devon and the engineer who accompanied him arrived a few minutes after we did.  I’m pretty sure they had the nicer drive, coming down through the heart of the Adirondacks from Ray Brook, way up north.

They stomped around speaking with us and also going off by themselves, taking pictures and measuring things.  The back and forth was very educational.  I’m not sure one could ever understand half of what we learned without conversing during a site visit.

I received a letter a few weeks later which encapsulated their findings and recommendations.  The two who visited were probably not the senior people at the agency, so some of the indications had changed.  I followed up with a phone call of clarification.  I was glad I did.

The first and most important finding was regarding the waiver itself.  The very definite indication, consistent with what we learned during the site visit, was, “Kid, you don’t wanna do that.”  We continue to have the option to follow up that avenue, but it was pointed out to us that it would be a long and arduous journey menaced by whirlpools and six headed monsters replete with triple rows of sharklike teeth.  Not only would we need to plead our case all over again, but once modified, it would need to go through a public hearing and after that, the application would still be at the mercy of the agency’s interpretation of need vs. alternatives.  Should we receive the variance, the agency would have a good deal of control over what we could and could not do with the building.  My preferred color scheme of pink and deep maroon stripes would never fly.

Better, it was suggested, that we work within the constraints of our partially grandfathered dwelling.  I say "partially" since previous owners had already “used up” the without-waiver expansion of 250 square feet allowed without a variance.  It seems that while the original trailer was on site and inhabited prior to the jurisdiction of the newly formed agency in May of 1973, the living room and master bedroom additions were built more or less illegally in 1975. 

The current camp.
Why would anyone want to rebuild such a nice place?
Perhaps because upgrading this facade-over-a-mobile-home to year round livability
would cost more than rebuilding?

The upshot of all this is that our initial plans, lovingly rendered by our Architect and son David, will now be used as bird cage liners.  Or perhaps he’ll use the plans again to build the places for other people in other places.  Lucky them!  We are allowed to build on the same footprint, but we won’t be able to expand the building into the larger single-level with basement that we thought made sense.

Our other option would be to move the entire building back 100 feet from the water.  Then we could build as large as we liked, and up to 40 feet tall.  Which might all be great, but being 100 feet back would make us lose one thing that is dear to our hearts.  We’d lose our view.

I've taken this picture about 500 times.

It's one of those "never get tired of it" kind of things.

This sunset view is often spectacular.

And it's always beautiful.

Even when it's cool and windy.

“David, drawing board, go!”  Little things like earning a living and taking Architect Registration Exams ARE not important!  Get those priorities straight!

The other interesting data point is that while the agency is very concerned with the square footage of the footprint, they don’t care if you add another story on that footprint, as long as you don’t exceed the additional height regulations.  The measurement which determines your maximum height is from the highest portion of the roof's ridge line to the lowest point at which the grade of the land meets the foundation.  The visiting APA guys had suggested that they might accept the top of the chimney as the highest point, but their superiors nixed that.  Even after the meeting, I did not realize that the highest point did not need to be directly above the lowest. That helps.

The other realization during the phone call was that while we can’t add any more square feet, we will be allowed to redistribute the feet, within reason.  And reason dictates that the damned current entryway cutout that channels massive amounts of rain and snow directly to the front door and onto any heads trying to enter should not be duplicated.

The damned current entryway.
Just try to get in our out of the door without getting soaked.
Yes, better gutters might help until they're filled with pine needles and leaves,
and if the ice and snow doesn't rip them off the building.

So we can slice a bit off of what was the trailer to fill in that space so that the roof and the interior make a whole lot more sense.  

By similar logic, the deck can gain no square footage, and can’t move any closer to the water in any direction, but being reasonable, the APA will allow us to move the house back just a tad and transfer back deck space to the front to make it possible to actually walk past someone enjoying the day while seated and enjoying the view.  There is no better place to enjoy one's morning coffee.

The foundation moves back a few feet to accommodate
the addition to the front deck (or so we hope!).

So why is it that the Agency will allow construction more or less on the old foundation with a second story while not encouraging the backward expansion of a less-obtrusive single story?  I suspect it has to do with easements.  Our structure has been sitting there for 40 years without any complaint or restriction, so our squatter status may have earned us the right to continue doing what we’ve been doing.  So rather than fight potential legal battles they might lose, the agency allows fine upstanding citizens like us to rebuild on the same footprint (or close to it), but add nothing more.  Less hassle for everyone.  But add an extra square foot, and you need to move the entire structure 100 feet away from the water.

That’s the scoop for now.  Stay tuned for new developments in the next post, tentatively named, “How to get big bedrooms into a small second floor space,” or, “Stairway?  You really need a stairway?"