Homeowner Forum / Construction / May 2006

Hi,

First, I apologize if this is completely off topic for this group (and
for its length, but this is going to make me sick). If there's a
better group to ask, please let me know.

My wife and I have been living in the El Cerrito hills (near Berkeley)
for the past year, after her father willed her his house, which is in
a very nice neighbourhood of 1950's built homes, with most being in
the 800k - 1.2m range.  We are first time homeowners and have never
had to deal with this type of thing before. We both have modest
incomes.

My next door neighbours - the 'sheriffs' of our neighbourhood,
actually minister/minister's wife - very paricular about their
property, likes to offer suggestions re. weeding, branch cutting,
etc,. approached me a couple weeks ago with plans for a major addition
to his house, but tried at the time to downplay its size, saying it
was to build a study above their garage.

At the time he seemed genuinely concerned about how this would impact
us and left the blueprints for me to look over.  After studying them I
came to the conclusion that this was, at least to me, a wildly
amibitious project.that was much more than just building a study above
their garage.

I wrote down the issues I had with the project, which included:

- property value loss on our side
- esthetics
- privacy
- constuction debris and men and equipment on our property during the
constuction (since he only has 5 feet to work with)
- the height of their addition (I don't actually have an issue with
the depth, outside of the actual construction that'll be going on for
many months)
- lastly, the fact that I work from home and it would be impossible to
work from home  - or even be at home - during construction

(incidentally, his house will be 3 stories above ours in the end, and
I can't find a house within several miles radius of ours where two
adjacent homes have one home higher than one story over the other, let
alone three)

I mentioned in the letter that if this project went forward, I'd have
to put in either fencing or trees to improve privacy and interfere
with the alley-look of such a large structure so close to our house.

He responded with a nicely written letter that tried to address some
of these concerns, but fell way short.

- he won't do anything about the height
- he assures me the windows will be high on the walls only to allow in
light
- he had no sympathy for the fact that I work from home, can't really
blame him on that tho
- he offered to pay for trees or large bushes, but, not surprisingly,
was making recommendations on which trees/bushes and where to put them

He had nothing to say about how this would impact our property value.

This will be going to the city in a hearing and I need some advice.

First, what's the chances I can beat this?
Second, what are the rules about contractors operating on someone
else's property when they can't access the 'site' via the home they
are working on. I ask this because they only have 5 feet to work with
between their house and our property.
And third, if there's anything anyone can offer as advice I'd
appreciate it.  This is a disaster for us, me especially since I'm on
the computer at home 6 hours a day..

I have a web site with some photos of the situation for anyone who can
take a couple minutes to look at it.

http://www.migrogers.com/home/home2/index.html

Thank you,

Mig