Building a House in Roatan

 We checked in at the lot this afternoon and almost all the stumps were removed and most of the tree chunks removed!

 So today was more cleanup.  We had the tree haulers back and the backhoe guy digging out tree stumps until a pin broke on his bucket.  We also went next door to Madeyso and ordered gravel and sand for the driveway and retaining wall.  I'll take more pictures tomorrow.

 I get to the lot and there are tree branches in the middle of where the house is going to be placed and some of the stakes are down.  I'm there at 8am and at 8:20 the building inspector calls to say he will be there in 30 minutes.  I let the builder know and he comes over in 15 minutes, by then I had all the stakes back up.  The tree guys showed up and I had them clean out the branches.  The inspectors showed up about 40 minutes later.  There were 4 guys and they measured the stakes - I was off by 2 feet on one of them, but they were really nice about it.  We should get the building permit paper in about 2 - 3 weeks, but according to my builder we can start building!    Also the rest of the trees were taken down today and most of it was hauled away.  The tree haulers will be back tomorrow morning.  By 2pm it was way too hot to continue working.

 The tree guy said he would be at the lot at 9am, so I showed up at 9 and he already had half the trees down.  9 out of 14 are down by 2pm.  The tree guy has friends that will charge $40 a load to the dump.  They showed up at 1:30 and took two loads to the dump today and everyone will be back at 8am to finish it up. Building permit.  I met with my builder and we filled out the application and collected all the necessary paperwork which included copies of our passports, tax clearance cards, Environmental survey, copy of our builders license, original blue prints, copy of the sale of the lot and a copy of the survey.  The lady at the window (far back right corner of the building) looked over the paperwork, entered our name into the computer and said " the inspectors will be out tomorrow."   The whole process took 2 minutes, I was slightly disappointed it didn't take more time - just kidding!  

 Got a quote from Precision Tree Cutting - $400!!!  Less than 1/2 price of the next lowest price we got quoted.  Then the building department called, our Environmental Survey was done and the for the 14 trees the cost was $7,400L or $308USD.  We paid the fee and got the receipt.   To apply for the building permit there is a whole list of documents and I forgot to bring the original blue prints of the house with me, so we will go back tomorrow to apply for the building permit, but in the mean time, the Building people said that yes, we can remove the trees already since we paid the fine.  So tomorrow the trees are coming down.  That will make a huge difference in the look of the lot.  Can't wait!

 This afternoon was spent on getting quotes for removing 14 trees.  This lot has a lot of trees and we need to remove 14 of them.  Most of the trees are inside our staked area, but 1 tree that is really pretty to look at, I've been told is a very soft wood and can easily fall on our house, so it has to go also! Talking to two different tree removal guys, when you get quotes, you have to be really specific.  One quote came back today and he said he included everything.  Well turns out that "everything" means cutting the trees.  Not removing them from the property or taking them to the dump.  He gave me 3 other guys to contact for a quote for the tree removal from the property.  Later I'll share the names of the people I end up using.

 Besides having the house staked for the building permit, you also need to show the location of the septic tank, or cesspool, so we did that yesterday and today we decided where to put the retaining wall since the house is on a slope.  

 Woo hoo!   My builder can work miracles.  No I'm not giving out his name, I plan on keeping him busy for years to come. lol So we were out running errands when my Builder called and said that the Environmental inspectors called him to say they would be at the lot in 30 minutes.  Last time that happened, they didn't show up until the next day.  So he told them to call when they were 15 minutes out.  We grabbed lunch and just finished when they called to say they were already in the neighborhood.  We got to the lot about 5 minutes after they did.  There were 3 of them - I think one was in training.  They spray painted red X's and numbers on the trees.  They have to be a certain size for them to charge us for cutting them down, it looks like we only have to pay for a couple of the trees.  They told us to come to the office on Monday and pay for the fines for cutting down the trees.

 Ok, so we are starting over.  Our Palmetto Bay is on hold. We closed on the lot in Brick Bay (south side of the island) this morning.   Prior to closing we met with our builder on the lot and put in stakes of where the house is going to be built.  This lot is .22 of an acre.   After signing the papers we rushed down to the municipal building in Dixon Cove and went to the Environmental department .  Take the right hallway all the way to the back of the building and it's the last door on the left.  The gal there helped us fill out the form and then sent us with the bill to pay to the bank in the lobby.  The wait there was about a half an hour.  We paid the 800 Limperas (again!)  Then took the receipt back to the girl in the office and left.  The inspectors are a little behind and she said they might not get to us until next Monday.  Our builder is going down there tomorrow to see if he can speed things up. Next is to s...