Beginnings

I was- or am- mostly oblivious to the preliminary work required for receiving permissions to build on your own land. The work is tedious, detailed, and seemingly never-ending. Fortunately and somewhat unbelievably for me, my baby brother has taken this massive job on, with gusto, despite having a full-time job and a family.

As of today, Sept 8, 2020, a day with hot windstorms and spreading wildfires dotting Oregon's landscape, nothing is visibly done on our project. But behind the scenes, a lot of work is being done. Here is a glimpse into the planning this week.

Here is the plot. At about 30 acres, the land will be divided into 5 lots. My lot is lot 5, which looks small, but at 3.2 acres, is not by any measure small.

Three lots will be sold to independent buyers, but my brother and his family will live across from me, on lot 3. To be able to watch my niece and nephew grow up, to live on Poppy's land, to be near family as we all get older. That's the good stuff.

Here's one of the first hurdles. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has part of the property labeled as wetlands. As you can see below, the light green area- "freshwater emergent wetlands". We want to keep the integrity of the forest as much as possible, but may need special permits and a lot of red tape may be in the way.

Email 9/6/2020

“For the survey side of things the logging and topography are the biggest variables as we want to only deforest what we have to… I think we need to figure this in a few different trips one for topography to verify what the OC GIS map and my site visits have concluded for elevation heights (see all height call outs in my site plan) this will allow us to make the final tweaks for a submittable plat proposal that will be accurate. Then once we have it dialed in so I can log and clear the road, I will need ares to be logged to be clearly marked… I want to do this cost effectively but absolutely in a way that protects my old growth forest...building forever homes for myself and my sister.”