Last year I wrote about Charles Siperko, the owner of a roofing company who spent six figures building a large go-kart track for his son Achilees. Having done this in a semi-suburban area and without any permits, his neighbors were a little peeved. Fines have reportedly been handed out to the builder and his family, but Siperko isn’t giving up yet.
As background, Siperko’s kid is super into karting according to his dad. So much so that the family spends a ton of his money shipping Achilles off to Florida and Europe to practice his karting. Rather than lose time with his kid and in order to give more practice to the young driver, Siperko decided to have a professional-level karting track built in the backyard of his property in an area outside of Baltimore in Howard County.
According to Siperko, the track lasted all of about a day before the police were called due to the noise. Since then there’s been an outcry from the local community.
You can see an image of the track here from the Greater Highland Crossroads Association Community Group’s Facebook page and note that it’s close to the property of other people, though presumably they saw it being built.
Admittedly, a go-kart track near my house sounds extremely awesome if the person who owned it let me use it and was willing to only run at certain hours. The issues for Siperko seem to stem from the fact that he didn’t get any prior approvals, or permits, or go through any zoning procedures.
As he told the local Fox affiliate, he didn’t think he needed any:
“I called paving companies, and they told me that it’s my property. If it’s not touching a main road I don’t need a permit. It’s my property and I believed that” said Siperko, “I’m not in a neighborhood. This is a family farm.”
The track has been shut down since, the environmental authorities have investigated, and his neighbors have mostly gotten mad. According to The Baltimore Banner, since the initial reporting there have been some fines levied against Siperko and others:
The county issued code violations against Siperko and his wife early last year. The couple could face fines of up to $250 per day until the violations are addressed. Siperko said he has paid $500 in fines, while a county spokesperson said the county hasn’t assessed any fines. And the state is pushing the family to remediate wetlands damaged by the track’s construction.
This has been going on for weeks and Siperko says he’s been willing to make changes to the track. His wife, Sarah Troxel, even posted a petition on Change.org to try and rally support. In the petition, she acknowledges some of the issues stating “My husband and son got excited and at worst went in 100% head first but the intention was never to disregard the law, damage the environment or have a public track.”
In the petition, she also lays out some of the changes they’re willing to make to use of the property:
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If granted the conditional use we will rectify any wetlands issues if it is determined that there are any in the first place as well as any setback issues.
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We didn’t know that we needed to pull permits or obviously we would have. We were perhaps naively or stupidly not aware of the permitting requirements and believed the asphalt company when they told us that paving that doesn’t adjoin a public road doesn’t require permits.
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We have stated that we will limit use to electric motors, certain reasonable times, etc to mitigate any noise objections. We have an 11 acre property so I don’t see noise being an issue anyway.
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When we moved into the home we received a previously done environmental study that stated there were not wetlands in that field. We also had someone from MDE out for another complaint that confirmed that.
All of that sounds generally reasonable, but some of the rest of the petition is a little combative:
[E]ven if we fix any setback issues or wetlands issues, and generate less noise than a bunch of kids playing in a pool, they want the whole track ripped out simply because they don’t want to look at it or have it in “their neighborhood!”
This us-versus-them attitude was repeated by Siperko in the aforementioned Baltimore Banner article:
“My neighbors suck,” Siperko said. “My family is a mixed-race family. Highland is 1% Black — they treat us differently.”
The next steps include a public hearing before the county examiner to determine if the relocation of part of the track deeper into Siperko’s property, though it’s not clear it’ll change the feelings of the neighbors. According to meeting notes from a hearing in October, a local documentary filmmaker was on hand, so there’s a chance this isn’t the last we’ve heard of this story.
If you have money enough to have an 11 acre suburban property and fly your kid to Europe to drive g0-karts, you have enough money to have lawyers to advise you to stfu and let them deal with the county.
Or buy a property in an industrial area and no one will care about the noise.
Great follow-up! Sure hope there’s a happy ending to this. Then again anything that will come out of this will be a precedent for others thinking about their own backyard tracks
Anyone who names his kid Achilles is a heel…
(I’ll show myself out…)
Huh, I didn’t realize we rolled over from 2024 to 2009.
If I were one of the neighbors, especially the one in that house in the photo, I wouldn’t budge an inch, just because of their smug POS attitude. I’d forgotten about this guy, and can’t believe it’s still going on.
the dude should have just paved a square “parking lot” and then fenced it in with a privacy fence. make the track out of cones. you could make multiple difference shaped kart circuits which would be even better for a younger learner. then it’s not an obvious eyesore and it’s only a nuisance when the cart is in use instead of 24/7
If the kid is regularly traveling not only out of state but internationally to drive, then he’s probably beyond just a parking cone course. If they’re shooting for a potential racing career then you need to be on a ‘real’ track.
None of that excuses the stupidity, of course.
i think the parking lot course would be better than this .. abomination
Was he relying on “ it’s easier to ask forgiveness than get permission “?
If so,he screwed really screwed the pooch on this one,plus now he is on everyone’s radar so anything he does from this point on is going to get a close inspection.
I also wouldn’t doubt that his roofing company might employ some people with perhaps birth certificates from another country that might not have taken care of all the paperwork required to legally be on this side of the border.
Can we agree that this guy’s poor judgment started by naming his poor kid “Achilles”? This boy will be constantly spelling out his name for people who don’t know the Illiad or mythology, and those who do will constantly make jokes about his ankles.
Giving him that name was all about making the father feel important and not about the kid’s practical needs, which sums up the whole track thing too. If the father had invested that $100k instead of building the damn track his son would have been able to go to college anywhere and maybe still have some left over to start a life far away from his self-centered dad.
Yeah. What a heel.
I looked at the property record for for a comment on the initial post in November, and this is one of those areas regulated to prevent dense development, so I think there’s a five-acre minimum with maybe some cluster development allowed (although I think the cluster development is still pretty spread out.) There’s no water or sewer service out there, and it looks like the “family farm” this guy disingenuously claims to have is a land use classification that gives him an agricultural tax rate in part of the property. Which, fine, it’s legal, and it reduces development pressures even if it doesn’t do squat for the area’s agricultural heritage. But the zoning ordinance seems (I did commercial property research but am by no means a lawyer) to only allow recreational facilities like pools and tennis courts out there if it’s managed by an HOA that would maintain it, which he ain’t and ain’t part of.
So there’s that he built it right up against the neighbors lot line, and has 11 acres?? Should have had it further away put up a earthen berm and nice evergreen bushes & trees up so the neighbors would see that, and muffle out the sound. Oh well fancy driveway now.
there’s no reason to build whatever abomination of a “track” just a square parking lot and make the circuit out of cones.
F this guy and his jackass family.
We all know what’s going to happen. The kid’s going to use it for a season or two. He’s going to move on to the next thing (probably opiods), or find out hew was never really that good.
The track gets dis-used, pavement cracks. Weeds grow.
Now you live in an expensive home on former farmland bordering what looks like the parking lot of a dead mall.
Neighbors don’t have to suffer because dumbass dad thinks his very average child is exceptional. Make whatever sacrifices you want for your shitty kid’s dream of the week. I don’t owe him (or you) anything.
Judging from dad’s level of entitlement I can only guess what he’s passing down to Achilles. They should probably be saving their money for rehab. This kid’s going to be a frequent flier.