Oh come on people!

In reply to SV reX :

A permit is needed to clear or grade land in Howard County. You must also submit a sediment control  and erosion plan. Again, this is not the "rural" area most people think of where anything goes. 

I advise reading more of the article.

According to the transcript, the owner purchased the property in 2016 and has spent at least $100,000 to have the track built. Now aware of how unpopular it is with locals, he applied for a conditional use permit that’d certify the track only for private, non-competitive use.

The owner is now following the proper procedures. There appear to be official systems to do this sort of thing semi retroactively.

Presumably if the landscaping is done properly to not pose erosion, flooding, etc. risks, it's for private use non-competitive use, and using quiet electric carts, he should have no problem getting the permits he's seeking.

These rules do exist for a reason, and it appears they are working the way they are supposed to.

In reply to Steve_Jones :

It depends on the entity enforcing said rules. It appears that you can atone for it in the place that the track was built, buy acquiring the proper permits.

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

These rules do exist for a reason, and it appears they are working the way they are supposed to.
 

This is the problem that I have with this whole situation. I think many of you are missing one of the main reasons these rules exist. They exist for control. On the surface, they make sense- there needs to be some limits to ensure the happiness and safety of the community as a whole. But when the rules and regulations get so onerous that it becomes so costly, time consuming, or physically impossible to comply with every rule and regulation, it can make anyone become a "law breaker." Since it's impossible to police such a huge amount of regulations equally, they often become a weapon to selectively wield. I'm not okay with that.  
 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

So it's ok to break the rules, as long as you try to fix it when you get caught. Does that apply to the Challenge this year too?
 

That's a horrible example. The Challenge rules are clearly defined for all and enforced equally. To make it a better example, it would be as if the Challenge rules were crafted in a way to make it impossible for everyone to comply, and they were only enforced if you didn't like the winner. 

I live in a rural area and I still need to pull permits. I'm currently having the panel in my house replaced.

There are a couple things I've done in the past which required permits, which I haven't applied for. I'm fully aware that I may get my pee-pee whacked because of that.

It's called "behaving like an adult".

I did an unpermitted addition to my garage. Went to each neighbor and showed them my plans and explained to them that they had full veto power. One guy asked for a minor alteration, which I accomodated, after which I built it. The problem is, now my neighbors have something that they can use against me if we ever have a dispute.

Example 2: I wanted to make my attic inhabitable as a third bedroom, but the floors were too weak for traffic. I went to a pal at a local lumberyard and asked him if he had tables that told him what size floor joists that I should use. He told me, and I reinforced the floor, ran electrical, drywall, et cetera. Now I have a beautiful space.....with springy floors which I hate. My pal was wrong, and I should have used a proper engineer.

Moral of the story: You break the rules, you take the chances.

"America has a system of laws which are poorly written and haphazardly enforced".

Frank Zappa

This seems like the sort of thing that should require a permit and some kind of review. A lot of the property on my road is considered wetlands and the DEP reviews certain types of projects. One idiot neighbor decided rules were for other people, made a poorly thought out change to his property, and now two of his neighbors flood each spring and whenever we get a heavy rain because of how he regraded his yard and filled in the creek that ran through his property. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to Steve_Jones :

In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :

So it's ok to break the rules, as long as you try to fix it when you get caught. Does that apply to the Challenge this year too?
 

That's a horrible example. The Challenge rules are clearly defined for all and enforced equally. To make it a better example, it would be as if the Challenge rules were crafted in a way to make it impossible for everyone to comply, and they were only enforced if you didn't like the winner. 

How is that horrible? The rules here are defined and are trying to be Enforced equally. This guy decided the rules didn't apply to him. Please explain to me why he can ignore the rules you and I would have to follow? What makes him special?

In reply to Steve_Jones :

How is that horrible? The rules here are defined and are trying to be Enforced equally. This guy decided the rules didn't apply to him. Please explain to me why he can ignore the rules you and I would have to follow? What makes him special?

Because the Challenge has rules, which everyone is expected to follow. The rules are relatively simple, allowing for a lot of freedom and creativity within those rules. If the challenge was like the permit process, a build would look like this...

You would have to submit a plan to the organizers with a large fee before you could build the car. It could take weeks to get approval. Every change would require another fee and a few more weeks before you could make it. If you build your car and fail to submit a change, you could be disqualified. The car would cost much more, take much longer to build, and you would have less say on how you build the car. Most people would no longer participate. 
 

You guys are completely missing my point. I'm not saying there should be no rules or permits. I'm saying that the process is out of control, and had crept well beyond the intended scope of ensuring public safety and happiness. It has become a revenue generator and a weapon for neighbors to use against each other. The property in question didn't build an addition, upgrade their electrical service, or reroute a creek. They paved a small portion of their large piece of land. A large piece of land in an unincorporated area outside of any city limits. I don't care how many McMansions are in the area, that's rural. Call it a walking path, a landscaping border, it doesn't matter, it's just a bit of pavement. Where do you guys draw the line on where you should have to pay a fee and get permission to use your land as you see fit? How about a putting green? Horseshoe pit? 

Steve_Jones said:

The rules here are defined and are trying to be Enforced equally. This guy decided the rules didn't apply to him. Please explain to me why he can ignore the rules you and I would have to follow? What makes him special?

Fine. I'll bite.

He can't. He's not being given special treatment. He is being forced to follow the rules and will suffer consequences if he does not. I don't know all the details, but I have a strong suspicion that trying to get into compliance retroactively is going to prove to be a much bigger PITA than if he'd done everything in the appropriate order. If it turns out he took care and did everything correctly as he should have and just tried to skirt permitting, he'll have dealt with a large unnecessary headache and maybe had extra administrative emergency permitting fees. If he didn't do things properly, he'll be forced to demolish $100k of work.

Real world scenario I've been dealing with: when we started distilling, it turned out we got *some* of the permits we needed, but not *all* of them. We also weren't in compliance with a number of the materials handling regulations we were required to be. Some of this we probably should have known, other rules are weird and arbitrary (e.g. we can store as much liquor as we want in oak casks, but only 100 gallons in steel tanks).

Although I think our situation is different and we were legitimately ignorant of obscure or confusing rules and regulations, and this guy should have known that he needed a permit... that requires a subjective judgment call. I'd rather a system where the default is to give people the benefit of the doubt first as long as they have not caused harm and do the work necessary to come into compliance.

Let's be clear. The use of the property is CLEARLY allowed in the Zoning regulations for Howard County MD.
 

He isn't changing directions with electric carts. He already owns them. 
 

The ONLY line that was crossed was that he didn't apply for a permit in advance, and it is reasonable to consider that he may not have known a permit was required (since the zoning allows it). 
 

My experience is that this happens ALL THE TIME, and the the standard operating procedure is to step back, make application, pay a small fine (sometimes double the permit fee), and carry on. 

The complainers are full of hot air.

Everything else in this thread is speculation. 

In reply to SV reX :

It's not speculation if you know the players in the game. Please show me how you know it's CLEARLY allowed. As far as electric carts, he does not own any yet, that was a compromise he suggested recently. He 100% knew a permit was required as he told us before he started building, and we suggested he do it the correct way. His exact statement was "berkeley the County, I've got the money"

I'm not against it, I just think it's hypocritical to give him a pass because it's a go cart track vs something else. If You came on here saying a neighbor built an 8 ft fence and blocked your pond view, with no permit, but now is willing to pay a fine to keep it up, people here would be calling your neighbor an shiny happy person and telling you to tear it down yourself. 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

I'm not giving him a pass. I'm just reading. The attached minutes show he currently owns the electric karts, and the zoning ordinance for RR zoning permits:

"Private recreational facilities, such as parks, athletic fields, swimming pools, basketball courts and tennis courts, reserved for use by residents of a community and their guests."

I don't see how this doesn't qualify in accordance with the actual zoning code.

It not my fight, and I truly don't care. But if folks are gonna fight, they might want to read their zoning ordinance. 
 

If you are actually in this fight, I think you've got an uphill battle. 

SV reX said:

In reply to Steve_Jones :

If you are actually in this fight, I think you've got an uphill battle. 

You're assuming I'm fighting against him, I'm not. I'm just watching someone I know spend a lot of money on a battle I think he's going to lose. The EPA is now involved, to me it's like deciding to battle the IRS, doesn't seem like a good idea. 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Well, that's certainly true. 

We found the outrage of the week?

Cool.

Well if the EPA is involved then it's going to most likely be he went into wetlands. Those are the most protected area's around here. If so getting into compliance is most likely a loosing game. Having wired a few houses of people with more money than brains or commons sense. Money can't always get you out of the issue as well as it shouldn't just because you have money.

Appleseed said:

We found the outrage of the week?

Cool.

I know! I'm going to futz around the yard and piddle with a car or two and see where this is this afternoon.

Mr_Asa said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

One of the reasons this is such a sore spot for people is that regulations get added to a lot more often than relaxed. Look at the building or fire codes. It would take rain man to remember it all, and where I live, to do it by the book has become a rich mans game. In this case, the owner may have made a calculated decision: Get all the approvals with the associated cost and time spent, or build it and hope for the best. The approval could take years, require a rezoning, and could be denied altogether. 

Assuming that it's the immediate neighbor, if I were the track owner, I'd consider buying my kid the loudest 2-stroke dirt bike I could find and cut some paths along the property line. I wouldn't do it, but I'd sure think about it.

Funny, down here in Florida the rich are most likely to throw the rules out the window.

In the early 70s my grandparents bought a piece of land on Dragon Point Dr, in Merritt Island, FL  Their piece of land was 80 feet wide? Waterfront on east and west with lots north and south.  Over the years the county and Florida cracked down on how close you could build to the water.  Eventually every house on that road would have been banned, but were grandfathered in.  You could build new, but to do so required keeping the foundation and some portion of the existing house.  Lso, being Florida, lots of laws on the books about what you could do to the waterfront, the plants, etc etc.

Then comes a rich shiny happy person (a whole bunch of em, actually.  Most were somewhat respectful of the rules though) and he fully clears an entire plot.  No foundation, no plants, all sorts of ecological damage.  Then he built out, then he built up.  Put in this horrible 3 story modern brutalist nightmare of a building right on the edge of the water.

He was fined.  He paid the fines.

By contrast, my B.I.L. up in N. Florida is a contractor, knows the codes in and out, follows the codes.  Its easier for him to follow the rules than to convince some home owner to pay fines.

Doing it right doesn't take any significant effort, but if you dont do it regularly you will probably get caught up in minutae

So, can his flood insurance claims be denied because his house was not built to code?