In case you aren't familiar with our home...it is 100 years old and sits in the heart of a historic district in Atlanta. Basically, when you move into a historic district, you give up all rights to do as you wish with the home that YOU pay mortgage payments on monthly. We (our contractor and architect) have done everything in our power to avoid going before the urban design commission, but unfortunately our plans would just not allow. There is this crazy building code that you can do whatever the heck you want to the back of your home as long as it does not affect the "historical structure" as seen from the street facing side. Unfortunately, our plans require an extra 2.5 feet of ridgeline on our roof to allow for the necessary ceiling heights to comply with code. This extra height to the roof ridgeline will be seen from the front; however would be completely unnoticeable to the general population as we will be retaining the outward appearance of the home. The actual addition to the home the "pop top" will be invisible from the street.
Seems simple enough to get around, right? Think again, this is City of Atlanta government we are talking about. After a trip to city hall to turn in 14 copies of our plans, a description of the project, 14 burned copies of photos (who burns CDs anymore? oh yeah, this is a government operation) etc etc etc we end up with the totally awesome "certificate of appropriateness" sign that gets to adorn our front yard for the next few weeks. This is like our scarlet letter, announcing to any naysayers that we are trying to violate the code of their precious historic district, and basically inviting those naysayers to write letters and oppose our project. You may think, who would oppose such a thing? Well, unlucky for us, there is Paul, he lives 3 doors down from us, and he is the chairperson of our neighborhood's historic preservation committee (aren't we lucky to live in such a highfalutin place that we have such a thing?). He has some degree in historic preservation and apparently devotes his life to the cause. As instructed, we have run the project by him, "pleading our case" and he flat out has told us that he will be opposing our 2.5 feet of ridgeline and writing letters to the commission explaining why our ridgeline is offensive to him. Nice Paul, way to be neighborly.
So on June 12 we get the pleasure of going before the Atlanta urban design board to plead our case to 12 wonderful individuals as to why they must grant us this exception to the rule. Our battle plan? as organized by the architect and contractor-a lucky pregnant lady, aka moi, has been tasked with looking extra round, swollen, and miserable and giving a really hormonal, sob story about my 2.75 children and nowhere for them to go. How can you say no to that, right? Our architect literally has us writing out our presentation and rehearsing. Have I mentioned how much I despise government run operations?
We have probably a 50/50 shot of them approving the project at the hearing-what happens if they say no to the preggy? We have to come up with a plan B on the drawings that suits the board and return in two weeks to try again...basically we do this until they say yes or we give up and move (Paul has suggested that we start looking for a new home, isn't that nice of him?) I can't wait to invite him over for a BBQ this summer.
So here we are, we have a two week waiting period before our hearing. Our architect is working on other options in the event that our plans are denied, but there certainly isn't any construction happening anytime soon. Alas, I guess we will just enjoy these early days of summer with our wonderful new yard art.....
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