After extensive research with the people in City Hall, we figured that at worst we’d  end up having to run new sewer and water lines to the cottage, but that we weren’t going to be able to tell ahead of time whether this would be required (no one in the building department or public works was willing to give us a final answer in writing). Proper sewer hookups for the cottage were one of our explicit contingencies, but we decided that we weren’t going to let the deal fall apart for that reason so I just sent an e-mail to our agent informing her that we are willing to remove all of our contingencies and buy the property.

Of course, if we waited a while and the housing market got even worse, perhaps we’d get a better deal, but you can’t predict the future. So we’re going with what we’ve got.

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Mountain View City Hall

Catherine has been spending quite a bit of time in the building pictured, trying to figure out whether we will be able to replace the main house at 301 Monroe with a new one, while keeping the cottage. This is really the last major contingency relating to the property, and if we get answers that we can live with on this, we’ll go through with everything and close escrow.

There are numerous issues with the cottage, including the fact that it is piggy-backed onto the main house sewer and water connections, which is (we think) no longer kosher. We’re concerned that if we rebuild the main house we’ll be forced to change the back house, too. One possibility is that we might be able to trench new connections to the main sewer and water. If so, we’re going to try to get the sellers to agree to lower the purchase price by the amount it will cost to do that, since proper sewer and water hookups for the cottage were one of our explicit contingencies.

Also, the back house is too wide for the lot according to the current zoning regulations. When we asked the planning department what we’d have to do with the cottage if we rebuilt the main house, they responded with something like, “You will have to bulldoze this cottage.” Catherine had done her homework, however, and was able to introduce them to various documents from the 1980s that indicated that the city accepted the structure then, which softened their position. After she managed to get the planning department to give it the thumbs up, she worked on the building department. Eventually, they also agreed that it was okay, so now the only department remaining is the public works department.

We’ve got our fingers crossed.

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Catherine and I spoke with Randy Potter from Vox Design in Mountain View today about custom home designs. He made some pretty compelling pitches about the way in which they go about designing custom homes. They work closely with project managers, contractors, and craftsmen that do finish work to (according to his pitch) ensure that the final design is as good as it can be. They focus on “green design”; ensuring that the home is designed to make the best possible use of natural light and tries to take the greatest advantage of natural heating and cooling to reduce energy consumption.

It was a good meeting, except for the sticker shock that came at the end, where he told us that building houses in Mountain View costs quite a bit more than any of the calculations we had done. We’re still reeling from that and will be discussing what it means (smaller house) as we figure out what to do next.

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