Still waiting on building permits

TIC... TOC... TIC... TOC...

It's been about 75 days since we signed our purchase agreement with RH ($10k good faith down-payment paid - to show we are serious buyers).  Additional 10% down-payment paid in full yet still no news on the building permit.  Does anyone know when they start the permit process?  If you live in Montgomery County (MD), you can check your permits status here.  Looks like all our neighboring lots have permits issued except for ours.  What are they waiting for?  At this rate, my house will not complete until next year!

Here is a picture of our lot (where the orange stake outs are).  It's only about 6800 sq ft corner lot and it's about 9' between the neighbor to the right.  I think it's a little too close.  I think 20' between houses would be much preferred.  It's a corner lot facing 5 houses and share the green in the middle.  The 2 outer houses are RH Traditional and middle 3 are the Neo-Traditional.

The end-unit homes have side garage entrances (which requires a silly $6500 option) since the front of the houses have a large green area which is shared the surrounding houses facing each other (5 on each side).

 closer look

backyard

This is what our house will look like when completed.  Our house will have side entrance garage and the front windows will be closer together making it look like a single window instead of 2 separate smaller windows.  I actually prefer front entrance garage.  The drive way will be longer and more convenient accessing from the front door.(elevation B shown below, ours is elevation C)  Elevation B was our first choice but was not available because neighbor across the street is building the same house and B Elevation. The rule in our community is no adjacent units can be the same model and elevation.  This rule goes for exterior materials as well such as brick color, sidings, door color, etc...)