Just added Daphne Designs Her Dream Kitchen to the Sudbury River House story pages.
Month: December 2024
We had an overnight snow storm (although calling it a “storm” may be an exaggeration) and the snow is still clinging to the trees behind our (current) house. Here is a picture of the snow covered branches with the sunrise behind.
I just finished watching the December 11th Concord Natural Resources Commission meeting and they approved our plan with no required changes beyond what we had proposed. Woo hoo.
They mentioned a bunch of clauses (by number in the meeting) that we have to adhere to, but I assume those were all expected.
In 2017, Concord, MA passed a tree preservation bylaw to encourage the preservation and protection of trees on residential lots during significant demolition and/or construction activity. Since we are planning both significant demolition and construction activity, the law applies to our project.
Basically, if you take down any trees over 6″ in diameter, you either have to plant replacement trees (adding up to 1/2 of the total diameter inches removed) or pay $350 per inch into the town’s tree fund. Unfortunately, we are forced to remove a lot of trees as part of this project. But there is some good news. The tree preservation bylaw does not include the trees in the 100′ wetlands zone. The trees within 100′ of the wetlands are handled by the Concord Natural Resource Commission, and although the NRC wants to see replacement plantings, there is no corresponding pay per inch bylaw for those trees.
Here is the current plot plan showing the disposition of the trees. TBR means “to be removed”. Anything to the right of the green line is in the 100′ near-wetlands zone and is not subject to the tree preservation bylaw. (The red line is the required setback for the building from the street, which has no impact on the trees, but has a big impact on the placement of the house.) All the trees subject to the bylaw have been numbered by the arborist (T1 – T15). Four of those trees have to be removed (T3 – T6, also marked a A – D). But two of those are too small to count. That leaves us with two 18″ diameter trees for which we need to compensate the town.
The arborist is proposing planting a total of 6 replacement trees, each with a 2″ diameter. That gets us to 12 total inches. Since we do not meet the threshold of 18 total inches (one half of what is being removed), we have to pay into the town tree fund for the rest – $2,250. We can still adjust the ratio of plantings to payment, and we have not figured out where the 6 new trees would go. But it could have been a lot worse.
Also added to the plan by the arborist are yellow boundaries, which will be tree protection fences. This is different from the siltation barrier that we also have to install during construction to protect the wetlands. The siltation barrier is shown on the plot as a thick dashed line.
By the way, the plan is to cut a wide path from the road through the foliage running between the two yellow tree protection fences, and right through tree D. That will be used as the access point for all construction vehicles and heavy equipment. When construction is done, we will replant that area.
The Natural Resources Commission meeting is scheduled for the evening of December 11th. We submitted our packet on November 20th, and now we wait for that meeting. Unfortunately, there seems to be five projects being discussed that evening so I do not know how late the meeting will run.
We are also waiting to hear back from the four builders to whom we submitted the design packet. All four have visited the property (although I was only there to meet with two of them). None have asked for extensions, so we expect to get their proposals on December 9th. Their details and pricing will then be collated by our architect and we will schedule meetings with each of them during the week of December 12th to select whom we will work with.
We also had an arborist visit the property to evaluate the trees that we need to remove and those we want to try to save. One tree we were hoping to save turns out to be too close to the proposed location for the new septic system so it has to come down. Tree removal is a big deal in Concord. Any trees that are not in the purview of the Natural Resources Commission are subject to a tree removal law, which means we have to replace them or pay the town based on the diameter of the tree. We will end up doing a mix of the two but I expect tens of thousand of dollars just to compensate the town for the loss of trees (welcome to the liberal Northeast).
Tomorrow we get the existing house evaluated for hazardous materials. I know that there was or is asbestos flooring, but we need an accurate assessment since it impact the demolition process. The one builder whom I talked to thought that the demolition process would only take a day, but I think that is being optimistic.
The two builders I did meet both estimated around 14 months for the build process (starting in April 2025). I am not holding my breath, but it would be nice not to have to drag out the process for years.
Finally, last weekend, we actually started the build process. Ben and I went to the property and replaced the old mailbox with a brand new one. One with a working door (the old one’s door had long since broken off). Here is a picture of the new mailbox (sorry, I obscured the house number). Fortunately, the post was still in good shape, since replacing the post would probably have been beyond my abilities.
