Howard County's Habitat for Humanity leaders gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony in April to celebrate the dawn of their first home for a deserving family, sure they would be hammering away at it in a few weeks.
The weeks have turned to months. Now they'll count themselves lucky if they start work by April next year.
It is the unwritten rule in Howard County, where development regulations abound: Don't expect to build a house quickly, especially if you're trying it for the first time - and with volunteer labor, no less.
The county's goal is to control growth and its consequences, from runoff to crowded schools. But the complex, time-consuming requirements also drive up costs and make it harder for people to construct affordable housing, even for groups such as Habitat that exist for no other purpose.
"None of us expected that it would take this long to go through the permitting process," said Bob Warner, vice president of the 2-year-old chapter. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to be doing any construction until early spring. It's been one setback after another."
Habitat volunteers knew from the start that Howard's land is scarce and costly, but they thought the hard part was over when they beat the odds and bought a reasonably priced lot last year in Simpsonville, south of Columbia.
A family of 11 who lives in a rental duplex with three bedrooms and one bathroom will move into the planned five-bedroom house, which leaders are hoping to finish for a good deal less than Howard's average price of $272,000 for condominiums, townhouses and houses.
But Habitat leaders have hit speed bumps. John Little, Habitat's building committee chairman, said the group had to switch engineering firms in the spring because the first one was swamped with other work - a common problem in Howard County. Worse, they learned in the summer, after they turned in their building permit application, that subdivision regulations had changed in January.
Now everyone building in the more densely populated east side must file a detailed "site development plan" to show how the property will be graded, where the house will sit and how storm water will be managed. Some residential development was exempt before and invariably caused runoff problems, said county planning Director Joseph W. Rutter Jr.
Little does not know when the plans will be ready to submit to the county or how much they will cost - an engineer has offered to donate his time if the work will not take too long.
"It's the nature of what we're doing; we're starting something brand new," said Little, a physicist who has been getting a crash course in local building regulations. "It's frustrating, but we know we're learning the process. The next house is going to be much smoother."
He said leaders spent this fall trying to negotiate for a less expensive, less lengthy requirement but recently accepted the county's no-exceptions position.
"The rules are the rules," Rutter said, "unless they can figure a way that it won't rain on them."
The county government does not exempt itself from its regulations, either. Plans by housing officials to build 30 single-family houses near U.S. 1 and sell them to moderate-income families for $150,000 each are stalled until 2006 by restrictions aimed at spreading development out over time.
Habitat for Humanity International's purpose is to build simple, decent homes with the help of the families who will buy them. That keeps expenses down, and provides an opportunity for people who would have trouble affording a house.
The average cost of a Habitat house in the United States is about $48,000, but volunteers would be fortunate to buy the land alone for that price in Howard County - and other suburbs in the area are not cheap, either. Harford County's chapter finished a house last month that was appraised at more than $130,000.
Still, the Harford group has managed to build 14 homes, start on one more and get land for a handful more in its nearly 10 years of existence.
"Be persistent," Joann Blewett, the chapter's executive director, advised Howard Habitat leaders, "because the mission is an important one."
For Farin Crone, a self-employed courier who also delivers newspapers, when Howard's chapter can finally start building "is the $64,000 question." His large family's moving date depends on it.
He and wife, Debbie, have found a little bit of space for everyone in their Elkridge duplex, and they are not complaining about the delay. But the children are eager for a bigger place - the five girls especially, who share two sets of bunk beds in the master bedroom.
Debbie Crone thinks that the government wants to help with affordable housing but is doing more harm than good with its regulations. "I understand their desire to slow down growth in the county, but I'm not sure that's realistic - because people will come," she said. "They'll just squeeze in even more. ... It's an attractive area, there's no getting around that."