Pools timelines and setbacks – again

 

 

A few days ago we met with the contractor who is building our pool to finalize the design and the contract. It is all very exciting – the pool is going to be absolutely breathtaking, with 36 feet of vanishing edge overlooking the westward view, where we can see Mt. Diablo on a clear day. It’s also going to be expensive – as much as some people spend on a house!  But we feel like it’s worth the investment to establish Reverie as a destination retreat center.

The construction process will take four months — from obtaining the initial permit to cooling off in the pool with a glass of wine. So if all goes well we will have the pool ready to go by the end of September.

 

 

 

But right now all is not going well.  As I think I’ve written in this blog before, in March we resubmitted our special use permit application to the County planning department under the new zoning guidelines, and the County had thirty days by law to respond (which was April 29).

But on the day of the deadline they requested an additional two weeks (and we granted it) to resolve an internal staff disagreement over some key elements of the project.  The outcome of that will have a big effect on the design of our project, and ultimately whether we will be able to afford to build it at all.  I don’t think it’s wise to go into the details publicly right now while we are waiting for the County to work through their process, but suffice it to say that I’m worried.  And to add more fuel to my worry fire, a group of citizens has placed two measures on the June 7 ballot that will nullify the current zoning ordinance and revert back to the old one. As you may recall, that’s the one that caused us problems when we submitted our special use application the first time back in October. So if the ballot measures pass, it’s not good news for us.

Without the two week delay it’s conceivable that we could have gotten our application through the permitting process before June 7, but now that’s impossible.  I don’t know what will happen if the ballot measure passes. Will it immediately go into effect? Or will there be lawsuits (thereby buying us time)?  Right now it’s all up in the air – again.

It’s all really frustrating.  We can’t move forward on any kind of development until we have a better sense of the special use permit.  I just don’t want to spend any more money on a project that we may have to abandon. And that sets our timeline back further and further.

We also can’t schedule any events for the summer until we know more about what’s going on.  If we can move forward then we will be doing pool construction (and other construction too) over the next six months, but if we can’t move forward, then this could very well be our last summer living here.  So for those of you who were looking forward to our annual Rubber Ducky Race, stay tuned.  We just don’t know anything right now, and no one is more frustrated about this than we are!

 

 

 

And to top it all off, Otto has been having a lot of problems. The vet thinks he might have Canine Cognitive Dysfunction so we made an appointment with a neurologist to try to get an actual diagnosis and see if there is any sort of treatment.  It’s possible he has also been having a series of strokes.  We barely slept last week as he would wake us up in the middle of the night wandering around disoriented and crying because he was scared and didn’t know where he was.  Friday was so bad he fell into the stream when he walked down to the garden with me because he wandered aimlessly right off the bridge. He has seemed to be back to his old self for the past few days, but needless to say this has not helped our emotional state.  I love that little dude and it’s going to be very hard to let him go.

Honestly, I’m over the drama.  I would like things to start proceeding smoothly for a while (wouldn’t we all?) I just know that the actual building of the business is not going to be easy, so it would be nice if we could get over this initial hurdle and then start on the part that will actually be hard!

 

 

#reverieretreat