I crossed a line last week when I departed from my usual professional subject area and flamed aggressively about the performance of my town zoning board in receiving my request to repair and restore a screen porch on the back of my house. Above is a photo of one of the support posts — whose job is to hold the porch up off the ground.
So I’m going to close the book on complaining about local public servants — not because the Andover Twilight Zoning Board under the leadership of Stephen D. Anderson and with Nancy K. Jeton’s support has earned any reprieve, but because Kaija Gilmore, Inspector of Buildings, took time to meet with me today and review photos of my porch, discuss remediation to some of the problems, and classified the project a “repair.” You see if you cross the line from “repair” to “remove and replace,” you invoke regulations and requirements that make your hair hurt. In my case, requiring a $1500 certified plot plan (thanks Kaija for saving me this significant “flush money” expense), requiring a hearing before the zoning board to dig into setback laws (despite prior building department and zoning board approval of the original structure… whose footprint I was only going to reduce). Pending the outcome of that mercurial group, I may have had to stop at “remove,” if you know what I mean.
Thanks, Kaija, for restoring what was left of my faith in the building / zoning process in Andover, MA.
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