The saga of the shed.
We'd like to knock this stupid thing down. Unfortunately, it's a contributing element to the
historical nature of the neighborhood. We applied to the City of Phoenix to
knock it down last December. We were denied.
It's taken me three months to get the necessary paperwork together to appeal the decision, but I did, and it was turned in April 4th.
The city came out and posted the house. We had a hearing April 18 at 4pm.
Backstory. Our first iteration of the plans called for this to be spiffed up into a guest house for Justin. After looking at it, though, Mark blanched with fear. He figured the entire thing would collapse if anything was done to it. Sheer orneriness was the only thing keeping it standing. We abandoned our plans to use this as a guest house and focused instead on working on the space inside the house.
Because of its close proximity to the house, the stupid shed limits the size of the patio or deck we can attach to the house. It can't be any closer than six feet to the outbuilding. This gives us a very small deck, so we decided to apply for permission to knock the thing down. We applied in December 2002, and were promptly denied. We appealed the decision and were given a hearing.
The basis for the appeal is "economic hardship." I spoke with Mark about the cost of rehabilitating the building and turning it into a guest house. He told me it would cost between $80 and $100 per square foot to build an entirely new building. A building this size would run about $20,000. That would be the cost to tear the existing building down and put up a whole new building. He guessed that it would be about three times as much to rehabilitate the existing structure and turn it into a guest house. He provided a letter to that effect.
When I bought this house in '97, one of the "comps" on the appraisal had a guest house. The appraiser deducted $4,500 from the value of that house to compensate for the guest house. I figured that a guest house will add about that much value to our property. Yet we'd spend $20,000 to build a new guest house, or $60,000 to fix up the existing structure. Sixty grand to realize five grand in resale value. That sounds like economic hardship to me. I submitted an appeal and we had a hearing April 18th.
The hearing was a joke. Mark and I talked about the shed. Mark said that the garage was inexpensively constructed, and was never meant to last seventy years. He talked about how much would be involved in restoring it. The historic preservation officer didn't like Mark's guess that it would be $60,000 to restore the garage and convert it to a guest house. She wanted an exact number. The hearing was continued until May 1 to provide Mark an opportunity to state with a higher level of exactitude the amount it would cost to restore the garage. Click here to download the 300k staff report (in Word 2000 format) the historic preservation officer sent me the day before the hearing. I'll put a scan of it here, shortly.
Now, Mark has to waste his time making up an estimate as to how much it will cost to rehab the garage. Stupidity. They won't let me tear down the garage that I want to tear down, yet the City forces Roberta to tear down her carport; a carport no one wants torn down. Stupidity. If I didn't have a state job, I'd run for city council. These people are just stupid.
And when Simon and Garfunkle sing about "a winter's day, in a deep and dark December," check out the photo at the top of the page. It was taken right before we filed for permission to tear the garage down. It's the very embodiment of the crappy winter's day, about which they're singing.
May 1, 2003. Mark provided an estimate on the cost to rehabilitate the worthless shed. It hovered right at twenty grand. $3,500 of that was for siding. He also provided a letter to the Preservation people that he could build a similar shed for $4,000. With this information, I sallied forth into the continued hearing.
Jodie and Barbara were there again. I presented the letter and Mark's estimate. They immediately began to critique his stuff. Jodie didn't like the plumbing and electricity. She felt that inflated the cost. I told her it currently had both plumbing and electricity, and that Mark was replicating what was there. She continued to frown at the estimate. She also didn't like the fact that Mark had a line item for "Contractor Profit." She thought that was too blatant, and that he should use the term "overhead," instead.
Barbara took issue with the $4,000 estimate to build a new shed. She thought that was too low. She kept tapping that number with her pencil. I pulled out a price list from Tuff Shed, and showed her that for them to put up a structure of similar size, it would only be about two grand. "But they're ugly," she exclaimed. I pointed to the pictures of the existing shed and pointed out that it wasn't exactly Fallingwater. Okay, maybe I wasn't that glib, but I did point out that the existing shed wasn't that great looking.
After much back and forth of this nature, Barbara finally said that although she didn't like it, she was going to grant the demolition request. Yippeeee! She signed the form, but Jodie pointed out there was a five-day public comment period. The decision would be final on Wednesday.
Here's the "permission slip" to tear down the shed:
Mark quoted us a price of $850 to demo the shed. A dumpster is only $225, and I'm trying to convince Leisa that she would derive great personal satisfaction from going at this herself. She is not convinced.
Demo photos to phollow.
It's Down. Monday, June 30, 2003, the shed came down! I took the Canon out and shot film of the event. The photos are located on Week Thirty Two.
Leisa is sooooo happy!
