Housing developments

The construction zone that is my neighbourhood will soon be just a neighbourhood: The last few available sections are being developed, or soon will be. This is a good thing for a lot of reasons—not the least the noise and vibrations from the building work will be over soon. Mostly, though, I just think it’s interesting.

The latest development, so to speak, in this saga is that preliminary work has been done to make it possible to build a house on the section next door to mine (photo above). It’s on the East-sh side of my property, a side on which all the windows of my house have frosted privacy glass.

Recently, there was someone working right at the end of fenceline separating my property from the empty one, near my driveway (so I saw them when I looked out my front window). Today, I went out to look, and it turned out they'd installed a box to supply electricity to the site for the builder to use (that’s the ugly graffiti-covered thing on the right side of the photo above; the fence along the right edge is the boundary). Stakes in the ground mark the edges of the slab foundation (it’s not visible in this photo, but there’s a blue line painted on the grass stretching from the nearest wooden stake to the back of the section).

This means that soon the earthworks will begin to allow them to pour the foundation slab and then the real construction can begin. It looks to me like it’ll be a relatively small house, and, if I’m right, that would maximise the open land around the house. I’ll have a better idea when the foundation is poured.

Meanwhile, there have also been developments, so to speak, at the house immediately behind mine (photo below). I last talked about that house barely a week ago, and a lot has happened:

At the end of last week, a truck arrived to deliver the wood trusses, and the crane lifted them up onto the house. Until light failed that night, the young guy who owns the house and another guy started installing the trusses (which is why they wanted them up on the house, rather than piled on the ground as often happens: It saved time and effort getting the trusses up and ready to install, but I also doubt that only two people could get the trusses up there and installed, too.

The next day, Saturday, the guys pretty much finished installing the main trusses, and began work on the rest of the roof structure. On Sunday, they finished whatever was left. Nothing’s happened since, possibly because they’re waiting for the inspection of the roof and framing. Once the inspection is completed and signed-off, they’ll be able to close in the roof and put on the initial sheathing of the walls.

I have no idea when construction of the new house will begin, of course, but the fact the stakes are in the ground suggests it’ll be sooner rather than later. However, mid-winter isn’t until next week, so there could be significant weather-related delays. That’s true for both houses, actually.

I'm pretty sure these two are the last (or nearly last) sections without completed houses on them in the immediate area around my street. At the very least, the house next door will, when it's completed, be the last house on my street—all the other properties have houses on them with people living there.

All of this is good news: A neighbourhood is always better without empty lots in it, not the least because houses in a new area are usually worth more when they’re not located in an actual building zone. More practically, this could also mean that we might be more likely to get the parks and other amenities that Hamilton City Council promised us.

To be honest, though, this building work doesn't actually affect me (apart from the fact that my house will rattle for a few days while they do the earthworks next door…). Mainly, I'm just glad I'll no longer have a big weed patch next to my property—it’s been the main source of weeds sending seeds to my lawn, especially in the front.

Actually, it does affect me in one way: As I said last week, house building fascinates me, and always has, so all of this gives me a couple final chances to watch  up close as the process unfolds. And, once it’s all done, this will become just be a quiet, ordinary neighbourhood. A mere 18 months ago, it was anything but.