The Story of the property – Part 2

This will make more sense if you read part 1 first, since that gives some background into what we are looking for and some of the challenges to our plan.

A month ago I was trying to decide between a couple different properties that weren’t ideal. I had been shot down by 3 different zoning officials, and my list of potential building areas was shrinking.

One of the things that I love about the church that I work for is that weekly staff meetings are actually staff prayer times. During our prayer time that week a month ago I shared a little bit about what we are hoping to do, and just asked for prayer from the group to help us make some of those decisions and find the right property. I had been praying that day for direction as well, just really kind of stumped on where we should go. There was a decent property option on the table still, that I was kind of excited about, but I don’t know about being excited enough to sell our house and move there. And it still only partially fit with our apartment goals.

That evening I pulled up the website with property listings again to see if maybe there was anything I had missed. A little dot on the map popped up that I hadn’t seen before, so I clicked on it. The listing was 1 hour old. 4.75 acres. It said right in the listing (this is the only listing I’ve seen that advertised this) that it is zoned multi-family residential. This was an area I had not looked before, so I had some digging to do to find out what that zoning designation meant in that particular area.

Now you’d think I would see this as a direct answer to prayer, right? And I got excited for a second, but then I looked at the map at where the property was. “Nope,” I thought. That’s not going to work. That’s not really an area of town that I’m interested in, and I really don’t think Katie is going to want to live there either.

You have to understand that the city we live in now is the one that people generally want to live in. Property values are high, bike paths stretch down every street, playgrounds and parks are on every corner it seems like. The more I am looking at other properties the more I am appreciating what we have. Not to mention the gorgeous park that is directly across the street from where we live now where I take a walk every morning.

So when I saw the location, I thought, well that’s too bad that this property isn’t located somewhere else.

I showed it to Katie, she agreed with my initial assessment, but then also suggested we should take a drive up there before we write it off. It would be worth looking at least, and maybe we might feel ok about it?

We took the drive. And we did not hate it. In fact, there were some things that were kind of appealing about it.

Here’s the deal. This property is not necessarily where I would choose to put my house if we were just building for my family. But if I want to build spaces for aged out foster youth? For them, it’s actually perfect. It’s in the city. it is walking distance from 2 colleges and a tech school. It doesn’t get much better for kids who are coming out of foster care to be able to work on their future goals.

So here’s how the choice lined up, one the one hand we have the property that I love, but it can only be for our immediate family. On the other hand, there is the property that will be ideal for aged out youth, but it’s not in the spot I liked as much for us.

I dug into the zoning. Could I build 2 apartments as part of my house and rent those out? This is the first property that will allow this without even a public forum. Thats huge! And then, reading the ordinance, I saw something else.

This property allows not just my house I want to build, and not just 2 apartments as part of that house, but also allowed in that zone we can build 16 additional dwelling units per acre! I had to confirm this with the zoning department, and it’s true. After we build our house and the apartments, we can actually build a few more small houses on our property and rent those out too! Right now in my mind, I’m thinking that eventually 8 small homes, a mix of 2 and 1 bedroom units, would be ideal. That could change by the time we get there, of course, but that’s the picture that’s guiding us at the moment.

Now we’re thinking our dream has been too small this whole time! What if, instead of just a house and 2 apartments, we could start adding detached rental units? Kids could move from our house into those small houses and start doing things like putting utilities in their name, and getting a little bit more independence and space, but still be close enough to our family that they have some of that support when they need it.

And then what if everybody is invited to become kind of an extended family with us? What if everyone who lives on our property is able to do life with us, comes to dinners every week in our house, and we can build a big community of support here? Could that be the best of both worlds for kids who want to be independent, learn how to be independent, but still have a family connection when they need it?

We’re going to need a bigger dining table.