The contruction started later than we expected – end of January. We had to wait for the City’s changes in handling permits with DPA (with elevation over 12 percent on the property) and than we had to figure out how to pay a special bond to the city which will be returned when the home is finished. Something we totally did not expect.
Next, we had a “tree story”. They way the property is positioned, we needed to have BC Hydro to put up an electrical pole. Well, the pole they needed to use to pull the wires was blocked by the trees. Of course the trees are belonging to the neighbours but the way they were positioned -they were blocking the possibility to pull the wires thru. We discussed with the neigbours and finally agreed that we pay for the tree removal and that triggered the start of works.
OMG, the first 3-4 days changed everything on the property. The old trees/orchard left overs were removed, opening up the view and it was beutiful. The dirt was moved around and luckily there was no giant rocks under so no blasting was needed. The whole area changed literally overnight. We learned excavating costs a lot and we finally straightened out the payment of bond to the city (the bank would not issue a bond to individuals so we negotiated that our contractor gives it to the city and we pay it to the contractors). So basically a couple days of end of January resulted in lots of changes on the property as well as large bill we paid. All the time while our existing home was prepped for the sale.
Before
Of course due to COVID guadance we did not visit our construction site in January and so we were lucky to score some pictures taken by developers and a friend.
The dirt had move, we were one step closer to the dream