Never Take “No” For an Answer

We found the Golden Ticket! We found the Golden Ticket!

When the Building & Planning Department told my Hubby garage conversions weren’t allowed in our city unless we constructed a paved car port elsewhere on our property (not in front of our house, but on the side where there’s actually no room for two cars) and then told him variances were denied “99.9 percent” of the time (even after Hubby explained the conversion was for his disabled brother-in-law, I felt defeated. My eyes welled up, not believing that after carefully weighing the decision to move Robert into our home, we would be stopped from doing so by a nonsensical city code.

The tears lasted all of 30 seconds and were quickly replaced with anger and a call to action. How can we get around this? What is the best way to be in that tiny, tiny percentage to successfully lobby for a variance? Certainly they can’t make me almost double the cost of a garage conversion with their paved carport requirements (not to mention it being physically impossible to squeeze in a carport where they insist it be located)!

I talked to a few of the attorneys I work with and they came up with a variety of ways to design the garage and our side yard to meet the requirements (leaving Robert with little room) and suggested ways to ask for the variance. The best suggestion of all was simple: start with the basics. What code are they referencing to deny us a variance? The code the clerk handed Hubby wasn’t explanation enough for me.

I found the Rancho Cordova Municipal Code and scoured it from the beginning. Finally, I found the code addressing “Reasonable Accommodation” which provides a process for requesting “reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities seeking equal access to housing under the Federal Fair Housing Act and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act in the application of zoning laws.”

Hallelujah! “Reasonable” is mandated by code! From what I can tell, this means we do not have to apply for a variance, we can just apply for the permit to convert the garage without jumping through the hoops of building a second garage. This is the common sense provision I was looking for.

The procedure calls for an application to be completed which was no where to be found on the city’s website so I decided to make a personal visit to the Building and Planning Department. Keeping in mind the advice of a friend to stay on their good side, I put on a smile and sweet-as-pie asked them about the application and procedure for the Reasonable Accommodation. (I had already ignored Other Brother’s advice to go ahead and build without a permit but to keep it QUIET – oops, too late!).
Two clerks had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for the application for Reasonable Accommodation.

Being my super sweet and helpful self, I handed over a copy of THEIR code, which oh-so-helpfully had the pertinent parts highlighted.

One of them skimmed over the Code and said she had never heard of this section of the Municipal Code but asked if she could make a copy. No problem (my smile muscles are starting to hurt). She asked if she could talk to the head planner in her division about this and then email me later in the day. No problem at all (I wonder if my dimples will be etched in my cheeks for the remainder of the day). This being super sweet stuff is really painful.

Several hours later, I received a phone call from the clerk who apologized for taking so long to get back to me (hey, she was calling instead of emailing and called me the same day as my request – I’m happy). She then said she would email me the application and to call her with any questions at all and gave me the name of someone else to help me if she was unavailable. She was pretty darn helpful and sweet herself.

She then told me we are the first to apply for Reasonable Accommodation. Granted the city is only eight years old but how is it possible in a city of almost 65,000 people this has never come up before? How many people have accepted “no, it can’t be done” for an answer?

Toeing the line of continuing to be cooperative and nice yet wanting to make a point, I carefully explained that I don’t mind being the first if it helps other disabled people in the community. I may have said something about how happy I am that I found this Code and brought it to their attention so when a little old lady comes in asking for help for her disabled husband, they can help her!

But I made sure to smile while I said it.

We do not yet have a permit in hand so I can’t rejoice too much just yet but I do believe we are a lot closer to our permit than we were earlier in the week.

Before I end, I have to express my deep, sincere gratitude to my family and friends (both new and old) for the outpouring of support, strength and love during this glitch in the process. It means so much to me to know that if we do end up needing to raise a ruckus, we will have numerous people right there along with us!