The future

Another corker of a day and had to find the shelter of the forest for this mornings dog walk. Makes a change from going there to escape the snow and "Beast from the East" type winds.

Took a bit of a detour on the way home checking out whether a farm shop had (organic) chicken meat for sale and then through the capital city  (1,933 inhabitants) of our parish before returning to the second largest (and only other) metropolitan area, where I live with the other 727 inhabitants.

The parish council has in recent weeks started on the work for 25 new house plots. I think unlike the "norm" in the UK, here all new greenfield building projects are carried out by the parish. That is, they buy the land, get all the county and state regulations sorted, divide up the plots, build the roads and below the ground infrastructure (water, sewage, electricity and telecommunications), do the marketing and then sell the plots to individuals who have a limited time to complete the building of a house (to stop speculators). The houses are all individually planned by the owners but have t fulfil certain criteria, e.g. max living area, building height, type of roof etc. There are no housing estate companies involved. Each owner can decide how he builds the house.

I do not know what the parish council wants for a square metre of land. The plots vary from 600 m² to 1,000 m². I will try to find out. As far as I know, it is normal practice to offer them at a reduced rate for people already living in the parish. There are still plots available.

Looks like the project is pushing the parish council to the limits of its technically qualified personnel. Not surprisingly given there are only 2,600 residents. This week they have put out an ad in the weekly parish letter for a qualified "Tiefbau" (underground) engineer to check and sign off the work of the various construction companies doing the roads and services parts. The job is on a "Mini Job" basis which means a maximum of €450/month (but normally tax-free) basis. A "Mini Job" is normally the type of parttime casual work carried out by cleaners, supermarket shelf fillers, seasonal workers and normally for jobs that around the minimum wage rates of say €9-€10/hour. Thus a typical job might be around 40-45 hours a month, one gets the full amount in the hand and one is legally covered for tax, health and pension rights too. A useful system for those looking to top up or have a small extra income as a pensioner etc.

Not sure how many hours of a qualified engineer you get for €450/month but I suspect one may have a degree of flexibility. I would certainly like such a small additional income and "challenge" but best involving work from home - NO Angie won't pay me for working at home on washing the dishes etc!

In the evening got some interesting drone shot aerial photos of a new build single house project my son has been involved with in the UK and within spitting distance of the house(s) he and his sister were raised in. Our two houses appear on the aerial photos and nice to see them again. The property is about to go on the market but I suspect the selling price of the one house may be about as much as that for the total 25 plots here!

Back in February when he treated himself to a drone as his own birthday present, he didn't mention he would be trying to get some depreciation costs written off to his tax bill. I am though still very impressed by the quality and above all interesting aspect, these drone shots give. Our Bliper, cbimages, an RAF semi-retired fighter pilot has posted a few very interesting drone photos.