Yurt

Our neighbor offered to sell us her yurt. It includes the yurt platform, which is a significant expense. We have to move it.

It's 30' in diameter, for about 700 sq. ft. internal space. It was made by Pacific Yurts in 2004.

In talking to folks about yurts, I've learned that there's a lot of confusion about them. Many people think you're not required to permit them because they are temporary, like a tent. The building inspector I talked to didn't agree. He says that you can put one up for < 180 days without a permit.

My understanding is that the building department is complaint driven, meaning they won't notice an unpermitted structure unless someone complains to them. I bet you could put a yurt up without a permit for decades, and unless you pissed off your neighbor, it wouldn't ever be a problem. And if that did happen, the 180 day clock wouldn't start until that day. That's not my plan, though - I am going to permit it.

To permit it as a dwelling I'd have to install heat, plumbing, and a septic system. I don't want to do that, so I'm going to just permit it as a storage building. I can't live in it, and I can't install plumbing or heat, but it would still be very useful during construction of the house. And I have the option of converting it to a dwelling and renting it out in the future.

One advantage of going through this process is that it's easier than permitting the actual house we plan to build. So it lets us learn about the process and work out a bunch of issues (like roads!) without tying it to all the complexity of a residence.

To get the permit, I have to fill out a bunch of forms:

- A Master Permit Application, which is pretty simple in this case.

- Address request

- Road approach

- Stormwater calculation worksheet

In some ways it's simple. There's no existing "impervious surface" that affects stormwater. There's no plumbing, etc.

The county requires engineering calculations on the structure of the yurt. Pacific Yurts sent me the documentation. It's 87 pages long!