Building a Horse Barn

[kconner]

i am near a wetland area too [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

i want to build a 4 stall barn...any tips ?

[SteveHCT]

One tip - If it's like my town... buy another lot [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] . We are in the middle of small town hell right now. I'm playing by the rules, speaking to whom we are told to, and yet we're almost no farther along than we were a couple months ago. In case you can't tell, I'm a bit disgusted with this process.

The one thing that's gone well is the builder. He's given me some great suggestions to get this going again. He suggested moving the septic reserve on the site plan, and that has opened up enough room to put the barn where we want it.

I hope yours goes better - I'm convinced this is mostly town driven... I'll bet other towns are much better to deal with - Salem CT stinks as a town. Too few people with too much "power".

[LarryRB]

come on up here to Union where there is about 680 population. Getting anything here isn't a cake walk either, in fact can get downright aggravating

[mfaley]

Steve,
I am sorry to hear about the challenges in getting your barn built.

We were recently looking at 55 acres but after being given the run around regarding "Vernal pools" we gave up. We wanted to move the grazing from cattle to horses and the county used that as an excuse to change the zoning to meet environmental demands. Not sure how 10 horses are going to be harder on the land than the 20 cow/calf pairs.

Best of luck.
Mark

[SteveHCT]

Vernal Ponds... yeahhhhh right. I've heard the same thing regarding our large lot. And the bit about re-zoning, I swear these folks pull this stuff out of their... hat. I think they just like to let you know they run your life and your land... whether you like it or not.

My update goes like this - I've gotten the site plan revised, and it looks like we'll be able to proceed soon with the next step. I've got a builder, but he's asked me to buy plans for the barn I want built. I'm now learning quickly that there are very few prvoviders of plans on the internet. I thought it would be easy to find barn plans - so far there just isn't much to choose from.

Larry - Now that is really a small town. 680 folks, and they actually have a planning and zoning group???

[LarryRB]

one of the first to do so in Ct. was officicial in the early fifties. I beleive we are still the smallest town (population wise) in the state and we cover a good sized area. No where like Woodstock, which I also believe is the largest area in the state,, Woodstock is as big as some counties in the North east,, Of course Woodstock has many areas, south, east, proper, north and a couple other areas, combined it takes 45 minutes or more to cross that one town

[SteveBenson]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
I hope yours goes better - I'm convinced this is mostly town driven... I'll bet other towns are much better to deal with - Salem CT stinks as a town. Too few people with too much "power".

[/ QUOTE ]

Your town is typical of Connecticut towns. These boards are (for the most part) filled with ignorant snobs that want to lock the door on everybody else and keep things just the way they are. Hey, but I thought Marianne was hired to make your town horse friendly. What's going on with that?

They believe that through regulations they can stop most uses and make it so hard to do anything else that most will give up. The only problem is that they can't stop the building of residences, and no matter how complicated they make it there will always be lawyers that make their careers on these subdivision regulations. So in their grand scheme to keep things the way they are, they make it impossible for normal people to use their land and the lawyers come in and chop it up. Exactly what they didn't want in the first place.

Steve, I would highly recommend you contact the Connecticut Farm Bureau and start raising a stink (and join if you are not a member). These people can and will help you if you work with them and take an active role in what's going on in your town.