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HomeMy WebLinkAbout091823 Septic and Building permitsALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them. Charles and JoDee Junker 36340 Cork Line Dr Kenai, AK 99611 907-398-3258 or 253-651-6202 September 15, 2023 Commissioners, I have hesitated contacting you regarding our issues due to fear of creating retaliation since our process is not complete. However, we are at a point we need your help. My husband has owned property in the Gardiner area for several years. Over this time, we have worked on the property weekends and vacations. There is a cabin on the property originally built in the early 80’s by a previous owner. We decided to remodel the cabin and install a septic system. We applied for a septic permit July 23rd 2021. The permit was refunded on October 1st 2021 due to the Existing Building Acknowledgment form. This is when we found out the cabin had never been permitted. We were told we could not proceed with the septic until we had the cabin permitted. We worked with Tracy Gudgel at Zenovic & Associates to reverse engineer the cabin so we could obtain the necessary permit. On November 28th 2022 Tracy and I met with someone at the Department of Community Development for the building permit intake. We had all documents in hand to commence with the building permit. I believe the name of the person we met with was Emma Erickson. During this meeting we were informed we could not permit the cabin until the septic was installed and we now needed a site review. I was completely taken off guard. I informed her we were told we could not permit the cabin until the septic was installed and showed her the emails from Debra Murdock and Shirley Reynolds refunding the septic permit fee and saying we need to permit the cabin before we could permit the septic. I still have the emails. Emma went back and spoke with someone in the back office, which I believe was Debra Murdock. She then told us there was a building moratorium at the time we submitted the septic permit but it should not have applied to us since we were existing. At that point, I told her I needed to know what I need to do and in what order I need to do it. She said we need to do the septic first then the cabin. Because Debra and Shirley errantly denied the original application for the septic permit, so much time went by, in order to do the septic, we now needed to do a site review which should take less than 6 weeks. I paid the fee for the site review right then (which we should not have had to do) we now had to do a winter test, another several hundred dollars. I walked into the County office in April to see where we were with the site review and told the receptionist I was confused about where we were at with what we need to do, her answer was, “you are not the only one”. Finally on May 8th 2023 the site review was complete. A far cry from 6 weeks. We spoke with the septic designer Mike Deeney to proceed with the septic permit and he informed us he was told by someone he was working with at the county we may need to permit the cabin before we could proceed with the septic permit. I told Mr. Deeney to inform whomever he talked to we would be getting an attorney. At this point we had done everything we could possibly do to comply with all the county requirements. We were at a catch 22 and did not know what to do at this point. Thankfully Mr. Deeney called two days later and the septic permit had been issued. Our septic is now installed and we are waiting for the final sign off. Whew! Now for the cabin permit. Our home is in Alaska and my husband has multiple health issues we needed to come home for. I tried to call the building permit office to see what we could do about the in-person meeting. When I called the office, I got the voice mail and it was full and I was not able to leave a message. I waited a couple of days and tried again; I left a message on the voice mail to please return my call. I waited another few days and got the voice mail again. I waited another few days and decided to call the very nice and helpful lady who did our site review Lila Stanfield to see if she could shed some light on why Jefferson County was not answering the phone or returning calls. She informed me the entire system was down and she would talk to the permit intake person and let me know what we can do. She did call back and let me know the system was still down and we would not be able to upload the required documents or talk with anyone until the problem is fixed. This is unacceptable due to requiring the documents have to be submitted electronically. Our engineer was finally able to submit the documents several days later and we had an intake interview scheduled for Monday, September 11th. We were set up for an intake where we did not need to attend. My husband also had a medical procedure the same day so when Gabe called, we were not able to take his call. He left us a message stating the system was down again and he was going to try to reschedule our intake for later this week. It is Friday today and no new intake appointment. We were also told by Gabe due to short staffing it would take approximately 6 months to process our permit. I cannot express how much of a hardship this entire process has been for myself and my disabled husband. This process has cost us thousands of dollars and continues to cost us over two thousand a month of interest on a loan we had to acquire. Our intentions are to upgrade our property to code and compliance with Jefferson County and sell the property. Six months to process a BWAP is unacceptable and causes unnecessary harm to anyone applying. I understand Gabe has other appointments scheduled and is trying to work us in, however we have complied with all the requirements and should not be penalized due to Jefferson Counties inadequacies. Implementing new requirements without having procedures and policies in place to satisfy the new demand is irresponsible. This sure seems like one department does not know what the other department is requiring. There needs to be more communication between departments and policies in place, not people making decisions on their own. I know several people left, whether they retired or quit due to the way the site review was implemented. Taking 5 months to process the Site Review was excessive. I know Lila did her best with what she was given to work with. My husband’s health is not good and we need to sell the property. We cannot sell without all the permits in place. We have three separate buyers waiting for our permit to go through. If there is anything you can do to help us expedite this process, we would be eternally grateful. Thank you, JoDee Junker ɖ