drteknikal's blog

At least that was educational. So, the shell was worth saving, but required a complete gut. As a bonus, the attic was a perfect triangular void just asking to be combined with sheetrock and yoga practice. But it was not to be. While the place was built as a store in 1907, and existed as such into the 1960's, the current zoning is somewhere between "vague" and "residential." Questions to city hall were met with an excessive list of intolerable hoops to jump through to receive limited commercial zoning. None of which could be satisfied until months after taking possession. In other words, the whole thing depended on a complete rezoning petition, which could only be filed after purchase, and which, at best, should be expected to cost thousands, and divide at least half the neighbors against each other, before eventually succeeding. You'd be $40K down and another $20K in before you could reasonably make the request, and if the answer was no, you're ruined. As I said to the realtor, "No, not on a bet."