Welcome to the Zoo

DOB = Zoo = Jumanji. That pretty much wraps up my experience....but a bit more detail is deserved.

I showed up this morning at 7 AM to claim my spot in line. Of course, there were 3 people ahead of me, all expeditors. One guy (Steve) was very nice and chatted with me a bit. He was impressed to find out that I was a homeowner filing the paperwork on my own and offered to look it over to make sure it was all right. He found 2 little mistakes (initials) but nothing that couldn't be fixed. After waiting 1.5 hours, I was in the maze. It started at pre-filing, an area of bullcrap where someone looks at the scope of work you are doing, your estimated costs and magically calculates how much you have to pay for filing your plans.

The slippery slope began here. The pre-filer didn't like my estimates and decided she needed to almost double them for plumbing and general construction. Crap. While this made it slightly more expensive, it meant that I had to go back to the office and change the diskette for the PC filing process. Leaving the DOB at this hour was like jumping out of the front of the line for tickets to your favorite rock band that you've been camping out overnight for. All this just because the city wants to suck more $ out of me.

I made the quick change on the amazing PC filing software (DOS is still cool, right?) and headed back into the mayhem of the filing room at 10 AM. It's like your typical government office where you need something. Take a ticket, wait for it to come up on one of the 10 windows.

The scene was not good. There were about 150 people there by the time I got there and 27 people ahead of me for the window I needed. I grabbed a ticket and thought "How long can it be?" Well, never doubt the inefficiency of government agencies. They had one (yes, one) older woman working on filing applications (aka Rosario). In the meantime, I checked with my buddy Steve to make sure I had everything in the right order. Another nice young lady helped me out too so that I wouldn't tick off Rosario and screw up the system for everyone else behind me.

After 4 hours of waiting (including an hour and a half lunch break for Rosario) it was finally my turn. I waited nervously, hoping that my paperwork was in the right order, my forms were filled out correctly and that the window attendant didn't think I pulled any funny business (I didn't look shady enough to be an expeditor and I didn't have their cool ID).

After a few "you shouldn't place the stickers here" and odd looks at the computer, my credit card and I got out with a payment of $160.60 for filing the plans (don't ask me how they got to that number, it's a magic Jumanji formula). I think that's cheaper then paying $2k for expeditor...but maybe my math is off.

Now I have to sit back and wait until the plans get approved....or rejected...but hopefully approved.

Architects are the Best Friends

I'm not really sure what I would have done without my good friend Anu's help. I really suck at using AutoCAD. I can get around and do what I need to do, but it takes me 3x as long as anyone who is skilled at it. Anu has been so helpful in making sure that these drawings are right and that I save money having the professional I hired to touch them up and stamp them. All in all, I couldn't have done it so easily without her help. Hopefully a few Saturday's at her office didn't kill her.

With that said, the drawings are done, printed and stamped. Take a look at them below :)




I met with my architect, David Cunningham, last night and transfered over the signed and sealed documents. Now the real adventure begins as I need to head down to the Department of Buildings to file all this. I've decided to make a bold move and do PC filing. Why bold? Well the DOB webpage says:

"PC filing is recommended for use only by experienced professionals."

To me, that translates to:

"If you're really scared of computers and have little common sense, you probably shouldn't use this program. In fact, you probably shouldn't be filng for a building permit. Pay someone else to do it."

And that's where the expensive expeditors come in. Wish me luck as I grapple with the DOB.

Busted - Part 4 - Expediters are robbers

Would you pay someone around $2000 to fill out some simple paperwork, stand in line, and get a few permits for you? If so, you believe in expediters. This concept/profession seems like a joke to me, similar to the state mandated law in NJ that you can't pump your own gas, only an attendant can.

Sure, I bet these guys know the building code in and out and have a good time bull crapping with their buddies they see everyday they go down to the Department of Buildings. I'm sure they do the job efficiently and timely. I'm sure they deserve $2000 for some work they do, but there's no way I'm going to pay that if I can avoid it.

I've started to gather the paperwork I need to fill out but it looks as if there may be a few complications. I will definitely need to hire an architect to stamp/draw the plans up. No biggie, as this shouldn't cost more then a couple hundred dollars.

I figure a day or two of my time off work will be well worth the $2000k I'll save as my piggy bank isn't endless.

Time to get back to the research.