Posted on 05/21/2004 7:22:39 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952
Friday, May 21, 2004
The way things are going, the world may come to an end before Lester Germanio is allowed to complete his environmentally self-sustaining "food-water-shelter project" in the boondocks of West Lake Hills.
Since Lester began building his home about 18 months ago at 910 Terrace Mountain Drive, where the only thing he'd need to bring in to survive is wheat seeds, the City of West Lake Hills has hit him with several stop-work orders.
Lester — who said he needs a place to sustain his family because who knows when the next "resource war" is going to break out — admits part of his problem is that he occasionally has a big mouth.
"Sometimes you get yourself in trouble when you're a little bit of a smart (aleck)," said Lester, 51, a bearded, round, seemingly jovial structural engineer who in an e-mail referred to the city's building code enforcement inspector as a toilet-paper-related product that can be considered a nasty name. Anyway, it wasn't a compliment.
In December when four officials inspected his project, Lester put them on by telling them the dome-shaped part of a tree planter made out of concrete and mortar was "a containment dome for a residential-scale nuclear plant."
It's not. It's just a tree planter.
"I'm not a survivalist nut," he said.
The crawl space under the tree planter, he said, will serve as a doghouse for his Rottweiler, Jakamo. But when the City of West Lake Hills busted Lester for not including the crawl space on his building plans, he demanded a jury trial — and lost. He's appealing the $500 fine.
"The trial was seven hours," Lester recalled. "There's been murder trials that took less time than this crawl space under the tree planter thing."
"He called the city inspector a 'snivelling worm' in communications in written form," said West Lake Hills Mayor Dwight Thompson. ("A spineless worm," Lester said.) The city has a 3-inch-thick file on Lester. His more flamboyant insults to city officials are highlighted.
With its partially completed buildings of mostly concrete and native stone, the project looks kinda like Gaza without the bulldozers.
This all started off friendly enough when Lester submitted plans for his project, which later included an amendment for a 30-foot-tall water tower.
"It kinda looked like a Buck Rogers rocket ship, and that kinda irritated people over there," Lester said. "They didn't want anything like that in their neighborhood."
There's a red flag in the ground where Lester wants to put up the water tower. The city gave Lester the permit to build it, but yanked it when the neighbors crabbed.
"The inspector instigated the neighbors," Lester said. This irks Lester to no end because the building permits for the project, he said, have cost him nearly $4,000. And he's sunk about $200,000 into the project to date.
"Originally we thought it was going to be fine, and it's gotten to the point where we wish Lester would get in that spaceship and head to the moon," said Mayor Pro Tem Cathy McElroy. "I like Lester. I think he's very interesting. But this has been kind of a pain, and I wish he had that spaceship and he'd just take off — destination unknown."
Lester's project makes perfectly good sense if you think big trouble lies ahead for the planet.
"If the grid goes down for utilities, there won't be grocery stores anymore," Lester pointed out.
The project would include two mostly concrete houses and an office, powered by the sun with no air conditioning, "with wheat as the basic diet," Lester said.
"A loaf (of wheat bread) can be made using 8 amp hours of energy," he pointed out. There would be herb and vegetable gardens and a rainwater harvesting system. There would be no reason to go into town.
That is, if West Lake Hills will let Lester finish his work.
"I'm still stopped," Lester lamented. "I've been stopped since the end of January or February. If they let me start again, I'd probably be done in six or seven months."
Maybe he should put in a circular driveway. Maybe that would make them happy.
John Kelso writes humor columns for the Statesman.
Lester is certainly interesting. Whatever he's building, let him do it. And calling a bunch of useless, brain-dead Gestapo hirelings names is still protected speech.
How dare this man think he can use his own property for his own purposes. Why, the audacity. </sarcasm>
Lester is free to call them whatever he wants. They are free to do the same, what they are not free to do is infringe on his right to free speech by holding up his plans.
He should sue.
Or as we affectionately call it, The Aweful UnAmerican Misstatement.
If you want to do something unconventional, prostitutes, bribes and sexual favors will probably be required.
Namecalling the inspector while trying to do unconventional things is about as smart as asking your wife to find you a mistress.
The community I live in, has quite a few building restrictions regarding roof heights, fences, attached garages, etc. My neighbor wanted to build a shop/tool shed next to his house and wanted to attach it to the exixting structure. He needed a permit to build it, if it was attached.
The building inspector told him to call it an "accessory building" and he would not need the permit. That is what he did, and did not have to pay for an additional permit.
What I find most interesting is that the city actually gave him a permit originally to build a 30 ft water tower! I guess that's only as big as a three-story building, but still, he must be pretty far out in the country to get something like that approved in the first place.
West Lake Hills is one of the more "elite" areas on the outskirts of Austin. Lots of huge lots with multi million dollar estates and homes. I don't know all the restrictions on construction there, as I live 35 - 40 miles away by road.
And this is wrong.
Lester sounds way too bright to be from Texass.
Why, it's the *duty* of the local population to allow Lester to build his water reclaimation and storage facility. Haven't they heard of Conservation?
Seriously, the building codes, fines, and neighborhood fussin' that goes on are enough to make one look for a secluded valley somewhere. (I know that valley couldn't be found in Colorado anymore, but I'd rather be on a tropical isle, anyway.)
He needs to make it look like the water tower at the Lady Bird Johnson Wild Flower Center:
http://www.wildflower.org/
(the stone tower in the center is the cistern)
Considering this is the environmental whacko capital of Texas, I am surprised they don't PAY for people to build rain water towers and water reclamation facilities. The tree huggers here are really off on this one. More than likely, they just don't want the "unsightly" building near their homes. NIMBY syndrome.
Watch it, now.
Zena, you have to know John Kelso's humor to understand that wording. He has some very interesting stories, even though he is liberal as they come. He covered the Spamorama contest, kite flying day, etc. He is more like "trying to connect with the redneck crowd" with his columns.
Gotcha. I think I'll have to give him another look!
I tried to find his Texican story I posted some time ago, but could not find it. That had some really good words and phrases for "newcomers" to Texas.
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