9. Land Partition: Step 3

Partition Application

The only requirement of submitting our partition application was to have the hydrogeology peer review completed. As indicated in blog post #7, the peer review is where the county has their own 3rd party geologist double check the work of the registered geologist that we hired to compete the initial report. Here is the peer review letter:

After receiving the hydrogeology peer review letter, I quickly signed onto the county website and downloaded the partition application. The application was a little intimidating at first, but once you start filling it out and checking off the list of requirements, its not too bad. I wasn’t sure if we would be given a private roadway since our new property would share a driveway with the existing home, so we decided to fill out the proposed road names just in case. Coming up with possible road names is harder than it sounds! Ashley and I sat around coming up with ideas for at least an hour and settled on a few related to our property or area. I threw in a Monopoly reference for fun because who wouldn’t want to live on “Park Place”?

Partition Approved!

About 35 days after submitting the partition application, I received an email with an attachment titled “NOTICE OF DECISION”. I opened the message immediately and started scanning through the text. Luckily, it said “APPROVED” in bold lettering right at the top of the page. Feelings of relief and happiness poured over me as I continued reading through the details. The notice gives detail of our proposal to partition and goes on to describe conditions that must be met prior to approval of building permits.

The letter also talks about an appeal procedure… I later found out that this same exact NOTICE OF DECISION letter went out to our adjacent neighbors. The appeal procedure gives neighboring properties an opportunity to object to the planning directors approval if they believe that the decision does not conform to the land use policies and regulations. Fortunately, the 2 week appeal window has come and gone with no objections.

As it turns out, the county will give our shared driveway a private road name. Of the 4 options we offered, the county picked Winter Way as the new road name. Winter Way seems fitting since we had intermittent snow showers for months during our first year on the property. At an elevation of 800 feet, I think we will see a lot of winter weather for years to come.

Partition application fee: $1,250

Road sign fee: $215

Partition costs to this point: $9,960