Underground 3” PVC Conduit & Traffic Fees

Transformer Pad fix

Not much has happened in two weeks (probably why nothing was updated last week). Last Saturday the transformer pad was updated to look correct. Even though 1 PGE inspector originally passed it. Mine said it was not right and would not work at all. So… unfortunately my neighbor had to pay to have someone dig it up and fix it again.

Laying 3” pvc conduit

Since 2 weeks ago, I’ve been working myself sick, and couldn’t find time to get much done on the land till late this week. Slowly, I was taking some bends out of the trench and putting sand in. I realized that I was turning my good friend Mark into a hired hand (that wasn’t paid). Today, I paid 3 guys to come help me lay the pipe.  We got 260’ of pipe laid in under an hour!

What are Public works fees

There may be a way to avoid the most expensive fee that is charged for developing land. Public Works fees are easily the most expensive ones. Here is their website with the information. They charge you because developing any land increases the load on roads and this is to mitigate that.

Even a single-family residence is not exempt from the fees. Crazy, I will admit I drive to learning Lane more than I used to but, not much more because there is a school on that road! The road is nice, but Public Works didn’t make the road better. It was the previous owner/developer that I bought the land from, he expanded and built the road to the school.

How much are Public Works fees?

Here is a link to their fee’s if you can understand it. The county gave me a paper that showed there were two fees. One for roughly $22378 and another for $9730, but I got a $7000 credit. However, I budgeted in about $24000 into my loan for fees. (I can’t find the fee schedule I got in 2017 and the county couldn’t provide an updated one…) So here’s what’s on their website that isn’t too specific to my site

Can they be avoided?

My Neighbor (who also doesn’t have a building permit yet) told me that there are credits to remove most of the fess. In order to do it, I need to prove that I’m putting in an agricultural business that does 3 things:

1. All my income will come from an agricultural job
2. For this job there must be 0 commute miles.
3. I forgot the third criteria

There are plans for more than a you-pick olive oil venture. I have a plan for a drive through hi-tech farm stand. Hi-tech + farm stand = ????? I’ll post about it when I have time. To me it is really confusing that there is a fee to mitigate traffic but they can be credited if:

“AOB fee credits are granted when the preexisting use is replaced by a new use that generates more traffic…. A project that changes a single family home into a commercial/retail building, or modifies a light industrial building into a commercial/retail building are examples of projects that would receive fee credit.”

Bare land would turn into a farm stand. That would create more traffic. Why are they crediting for that?

Success Stories?

I’m wondering if anyone out there in internet land knows anyone who successfully didn’t have to pay the road impact fees that come from public works. And a phone number to call someone to see if I qualify. But I’d love a comment or a call if someone knows someone who convinced public works to not charge them.