As many of you know I have been waiting to start my own dental practice for almost 2 years now. I believe that many are starting to think that I am crying wolf because I keep saying, "It should happen in about 6-7 months." That is what I keep getting told by my landlord. He isn't being deceptive, he is going off of standard permitting and construction time lines. The city has been the problem. The planning department keeps delaying things extensively and throwing up road blocks. Last Monday there was a meeting with the city council and the landlord had his attorney come. I went to see what happened and was very happy with the results.
The attorney said that he has had over 30 years experience working with development companies and the time it has taken to get to this point in the construction process has been 3-4 times greater than normal. He understands there are delays that can happen anywhere, but to be 3-4x more than usual "...is absurd." The city council is not at fault at all for the delays, but now that they know about its magnitude and the subsequent legal action (see below) they can move in to override the planning department and makes things happen.
So, the legal action...in 2006 the state of Washington enacted a law that (as far as I could get as the lawyer was talking to the council) municipal governments could be audited by the state if there were signs that warranted such action. This new law was going to be enforced on the planning department because there is strong evidence of practices to increase construction fee revenue by various things such as re-permitting and order changes. There will be a meeting in a couple weeks on this issue. Hopefully to alleviate the situation the council will jump in and override the current problem (not changing a plan for manhole placement) that could add on another 2-3 months to the development process.
All in all, it has been very frustrating and is causing a negative image for the city and its relationship with business owners. The council sees this and they want to correct that problem. I wish this could have happened a year ago so that I could have a year's worth of practice growth under my belt right now. The silver lining on this dark cloud is that I have been able to spend more time developing my systems that I want to have in place with my front office, clinical staff, etc so that I can start off running....even if that doesn't happen for another year.
7 comments:
Ronnie and I drove out to the ridge to look around the other day, we were wondering, is your office going to be in that little shopping/business area near the grade school?
It will be in that retail area, but rather than by the grade school it will be by the main road, the first part of it that you come to as you drive by. There is a small house like structure there that is turning into a gas station and I will be in between that and the rest of the retail paralleling the main road, on the second floor with a great view of the valley. Definitely something worth waiting for.
good luck BRO! and don't you mean "bixniss?"
Hello Carson & Marisa,
We have been enjoying catching up on whats going on in your life! So many changes-so fun and exciting. We finally joined you and started our family blog craigerin.blogspot.com. Fun! We sure appreciate your parents who have helped Craig with not one but TWO crashed cars in one month! You got to love Utah!
Good luck with the bus. Craig & Erin Bodily
Glad to hear things are moving along, sorry about all the delays!! It was great to see you guys in Utah, thanks for giving us some of your time.
Rachel
Erin, glad you found our blog. You'll have to enable comments on yours so we can post now that we can follow you guys.
My teeth are patiently waiting.
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