local weather Click for Sun Valley, Idaho Forecast
 front page
 classifieds
 calendar
 last week
 recreation
 subscriptions
 express jobs
 about us
 advertising info

 sun valley guide
 real estate guide
 homefinder
 sv catalogs
 

 

 hemingway

Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
208.726.8060 Voice
208.726.2329 Fax

Copyright © 2002 Express Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 


For the week of December 18 - 23, 2002

News

County offers incentive to move and reuse houses


By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

As an incentive to reuse unwanted buildings, Blaine County has halved its permit fee for installing moved structures. However, a local house mover said further breaks on fees and code requirements could prompt even more reuse, saving natural resources and providing more affordable housing.

With the Wood River Valley’s skyrocketing land values and wealthy buyers, perfectly good houses—even very nice houses—are often slated to be torn down.

House mover Doug Niedrich said he knows of two houses, of between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet, that were demolished in Gimlet this year, and a third in Elkhorn. He said he was unable to rescue them in time.

"It’s a tremendous waste," he said.

Since 1999, 20 houses have been donated to the Wood River Land Trust’s Building Materials Thrift Store. Store manager Bruce Tidwell said that though many were not practical for reuse, six were moved and are being lived in.

A beautiful log house in Hulen Meadows, donated to the Land Trust, was auctioned off last month via sealed bids received from eight people. It is scheduled to be cut into three pieces next week and moved to an undisclosed location.

As part of the county’s adoption of the 2000 International Building Code, the county commissioners unanimously voted during a meeting Monday to base permit fees for moved buildings on only 50 percent of the building’s value plus the full value of any new construction involved.

"It would be more incentive to move a building if the fee was based only on the work to be done," Niedrich told the commissioners.

Niedrich’s comments were supported by Commissioner Sarah Michael, who said the county should try to save as many buildings as possible.

In a later interview, Niedrich said he has moved 25 houses since 1988, six of them this year.

"It’s getting more and more difficult to find a place that will let you move a house there," he said, pointing out that almost all subdivisions in Blaine County prohibit moved houses.

"There’s an old-school mentality that a moved structure is a trailer," he said. "The county, I’m happy to say, is working with us."

However, Niedrich said, he would like to see further reductions in permit fees and more lenient treatment of electrical and snow-load codes. Moved houses must be brought up to the same code requirements placed on new construction. Niedrich said that can be prohibitively expensive when interior walls must be torn out to rewire, and exterior walls strengthened for heavier snow loads.

In an interview, county Building Inspector Bill Dyer said his department typically puts as much work into reviewing plans and carrying out inspections for moved structures as it does for new ones. However, the revenue the county collects from building permits more than meets the department’s costs. The excess goes into the general fund, only about one-third of which is paid by property taxes.

When a house is suitable for reuse—that is, when it’s not too site-specific or doesn’t require much remodeling—it is often cheaper to move it than to build new. Niedrich said he lives in a 4,000-square-foot house moved to Hailey from Fairway Road in Sun Valley. He said he spent $200,000 to relocate the house—far less than the approximately $360,000 he would have spent to build it.

Much of the expense in moving a house is to pay for pulling overhead power lines out of the way. Niedrich said Idaho Power charged him $18,000 when he moved a house from Ketchum to Buttercup Road, north of Hailey.

"You don’t know for sure what the cost is going to be until it’s done," he said.

 

Ski Reports

Homefinder

Mountain Jobs

Formula Sports

Idaho Conservation League

Westridge

Windermere

Edmark GM Superstore : Nampa, Idaho

Premier Resorts Sun Valley

High Country Property Rentals


The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.