Day 151
My wife, being very good with long-term thinking and foreseeing potential issues, made sure to reach out to the village as soon as she saw the lots next door had been sold. She wanted to know information about who would make the decisions connected to building any structures next door and how she could access them. The more we knew about what was happening next door would be helpful in determining what we might need to do in our own space.
After talking to the village, she was assured that all plans would be reviewed to make sure they were appropriate for whe land being built on. Considering this land was adjacent to designated wetland, we were also told there were special accommodations, including the construction of swale between our properties required to help with water flow. While this all sounded great, we were still skeptical as we weren't quite sure who would be in charge of making sure these “requirements” would actually be enforced.
We decided that if we wanted to make sure our assets were protected, we should probably be a bit more proactive instead of relying on others and potentially needing to be reactive.
Our first thought was trees.
With my membership in a local native plants group, I knew I had a potential discount if we ordered from a specific local nursery. To help us get more information, I requested one of their designers come to the property so I could share with them our concerns about the future development and see what advice they had about being proactive in protecting our property. The landscaper was able to come over and give us a general idea about what we could do. He then followed up with a more specific layout and plan for potential tree plantings. With a limited budget and the cost of potential trees being above and beyond what we could and wanted to spend, we decided to look into other options.
Since our famer friends led the grading project and had an extensive background in not only the local area but landscaping in general, we were eager to see if they had any ideas we hadn’t yet considered.
