07-22-1991 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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S:' k-'' f V. »- :'• ‘^r •,'•■• I; made a uniform fill in the basement cavity. There was mixed within some of the rock taken from the roadway a small amount of asphalt surfacing, but that asphalt surfacing had been on the roadway surfaces for a very long time, was very old and dried out and was also a very thin r^^'er, not over an inch in most places. After all of that fill in the basement cavity had been pounded down with the frost ball, the sides of the cavity were bulldozed in and black dirt was put over aU of the fill to make a uniform surface. The basement fill work w.'.s commenced on or about May 15,1991 and all of the cement destruction work and basement fill work had been completed by the 18th of May. It was a complete surprise and shock to be notified at the end of May by your Building Inspectors that an additional permit was needed. We wanted to write this letter to give you the history of what occurred here, to give you what we understand the methods which were employed by our contractor and its subcontractor in doing the actual cement work and fill work to fill in the excavation of the old dwelling house, and to assure you that our family was in all events doing everything which it had been informed it was supposed to do in connection with this demolition. We certainly feel that with all the communication we had with the Long Lake Fire Department and all the communication they should have had with the City of Orcmo about the burning of the dwelling and given the presence on or near this property of the Qty of Orono Building Inspectors both prior to the fire, and prior excavation demolition even to the extent of having be^ led through this dwelling house on a walk through by our contractor for the new house that we should have been informed by someone from the City Administrative Staff that an additional permit would be required. Under no circumstances did we have any intent to evade any permitting requirement. This letter summarizes, to the best of our knowledge, the procedures that were used to destroy ar^^ fill in the basement excavation. We can get more detailed affidavits for the City om our contractors if that should be deemed appropriate. We fed that we are without fault in this matter. We feel that the City had ample notice of what was going on with respect to this demolition, and failed to notify us. This site and the surrounding land is now owned by our family partnership, and there are no plans for rebuilding on the site. We are planning to plant the site in native prairie grasses and to maintain it as prairie. We have been assured by our contractor and the subcontractor performing the foundation demolition work that no PCA Regulations were violated in connection with the demolition of the foundation, and that the only departure from your ordinances was leaving some part of the basement slab foundation and the crushed cement and chimney debris in the ground and adding thereto some of the old roadway surfacing might not meet the definition of clean fill. Under the circumstances, it appears to us to be both \infair and impractical to require that this site be reexcavated at the present time. We do, however, recognize the concern expressed by Jeanne Mabusth of your Planning and Zoning Department that some notice should be given to possible