Regulatory Delays Impose Cost: Wastewater permitting slows building projects across the state [NC]

Carolina Journals Exclusives ^ | Cinco de Mayo, 2004 | By Donna Martinez

[TaxRelief]

RALEIGH — The biggest backup most of us are likely to encounter in our bathroom is easily remedied with a 99-cent plunger or a bottle of drain cleaner and five minutes of our time. But imagine being a builder whose new subdivision, school, or store can’t open on time, simply because the required paperwork is clogged up in the state’s wastewater permit approval process in Raleigh.

It’s a scenario Brunswick County Health Department Program Specialist Bruce Withrow understands firsthand. He’s been caught in the middle between frustrated developers and state engineers when permitting delays have occurred on some wastewater systems being built in areas of the county not already serviced by existing public systems. In these instances, state-level approval is required before the projects can move forward, and the impact can reach well into the community.

According to a story August 2000 in the Wilmington Morning Star, a charter school in the area was forced to delay its opening by several months and rent space in a church because of the red tape involved in securing its water permit.

“Yes, there’s sometimes a problem,” Withrow said. He believes it’s a clear case of the state not employing enough engineers to handle the workload in the Raleigh office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Only two engineers are available to handle his projects, he said. “A lot of people don’t realize there are other things they do,” he said of the delays. “They do the whole state.”

Lack of staffing is more rhetoric than reality when it comes to pinning down permit delays, said Lisa Martin, director of regulatory affairs for the North Carolina Homebuilders Association. “There are other state departments that are understaffed and they don’t use that excuse,” Martin said. “It’s more a culture problem. There’s no inclination for DENR to be service-oriented.”

Martin may have a point. After initially agreeing to address the permit delay complaints and confirm for Carolina Journal the number of engineers who provide service to Withrow and other county representatives, DENR spokeswoman Johanna Reese did not provide the information and failed to respond to a second request.

Smaller builders may face greater risk when delays occur, Martin said. While she said she believes that some wastewater regulation is needed when dealing with human waste, the wait while negotiating the paperwork maze can damage a project’s financial support when investor funds and land are forced to sit idle. “Every day land isn’t being produced, you’re doing nothing with it,” she said.

Smaller projects, however, are usually insulated from delays, Withrow said. He has the authority to approve new systems that meet the technical specification of small: less than 3,000 gallons of water flow. That size typically serves seven or eight average-size homes.

The headaches begin when a builder needs approval for a new wastewater system having a flow greater than 3,000 gallons. It’s not that the regulations for the larger projects are more complicated, Withrow said, but that there isn’t enough engineering expertise in Raleigh — expertise that’s required to ensure the larger systems are sound.

[TaxRelief]

...Control Freaks...

[TaxRelief]

NC *Ping*

Let MYkdsmom, Constitution Day or Taxrelief know if you want on or off the NCPing list, or if you think you've been accidentally dropped, or ....

[F.J. Mitchell]

State and county government in North Carolina came to the reliazation long ago, that their agenda of socialism could not be properly funded by taxes, whatever the percentage of value, upon homes that the occupants thereof could comfortably afford. Thus the era of building codes and zoning laws was born.

Fact is that our various governments within this state would rather pity you for sleeping under a bridge or in a cardboard box, than to try to operate within the revenues that would be generated from taxes upon a dwelling that the occupant can afford.

[snopercod]

Smaller projects, however, are usually insulated from delays, Withrow said.

Well that's total BS. I made an offer on a lot next to where I live, contingent on approval of a septic tank system.

So far, I've been forced to spend an entire day researching the original subdivision history in an attempt to get out from under the "repair area" requirement. Yes, these days, you have to have room for not one but TWO entire systems, unless your lot was recorded prior to 1983.

Then I spent another half-day looking up the regulations governing wastewater treatment systems to find out exactly what the "requirements" were.

Then I had to hire an excavating contractor with a backhoe to dig a bunch of 6-foot-deep holes all over the property so the inspector could verify the soil was "acceptable".

Even after all that, the inspector still won't give me a yes or no decision.

These regulations are simply a back-door attempt to stop all development in the mountains. As usual, our property rights are routinely used for toilet paper by the commies infesting the Eastern part of the state.