April 2024 - Construction has started!

The one advantage of not doing a blog post for a long time is that there is lots of news to report. The last blog post was in April of last year where we reported that the water mains, wastewater treatment system and conduit for the electrical power lines was being installed. This work was completed and approved by the county and PG&E inspectors at the end of last summer. Once all these underground utilities were installed, the roads were ready for paving. This paving was completed in November.

With the completion of this infrastructure work and approvals from the environmental health, fire, public works, building and the planning department the county supervisors will be asked to sign a release of the covenant that prevents the sale of the lots at the May 7th board of supervisors meeting.

Another bureaucratic milestone was reached in December when the California Department of Real Estate issued the “Public Report”. Both of these hurdles had to be completed before any of the homes or lots could be sold.

In parallel with the infrastructure work the building plans were submitted to the county for their plan check process. After several iterations, the building plans were finally approved at the end of the summer. In the fall, the building permit fees were paid and the building permits were issued for four units.

With the building permits in hand, we were finally ready to start construction of the first phase of homes. And in the beginning of December, the construction on the first four houses in Standing Stone Village was started.

Constructing a home is a multistep process with a number of different subcontractors and trades people. First off is the foundation, next is the framing, followed by exterior sheathing, windows, exterior doors, roofing, rough in electrical, hvac, and plumbing, insulation, drywall, painting, cabinets, flooring, tiling, interior doors and trim, finish plumbing, electrical, and HVAC, solar, and then finally the concrete steps and finish grading. At each of these stages, the county building inspector visits the site and signs off on the completed work. Since four units are being constructed in the same time frame, much of the work can happen in parallel, with each trades moving from one house to the next. As you can imagine, the general contractor has a considerable task coordinating the subcontractors to keep the project moving.

To the layperson, it appears that once the framing is done, a significant amount of the house is completed. This is actually not the case, even when the siding and drywall have been installed, the house is only about 50% completed. There remains a long list of finishing work before a house is ready to move in. As of today, one of the units has reached this halfway point and the other three units should reach this point in the next month.

All in all it is very exciting to have finally reached the point where homes are being built. The households that are part of this first phase are certainly pioneers. Without their support and commitment and the support of many others. This significant milestone would not have been possible. We invite all of you to come take a look the next time you are in North Fork, sitting or serving at CVC.