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:
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
I can’t imagine anyone employed by this august website angering neighbours with car-based backyard antics. No, sir.
So, this may be anecdotal, but I grew up with a kid who was big into karting from age 8-14. He was good enough to get his pro license at age 11 and his parents spent absolutely insane amounts of money to buy him equipment and practice time. In their eyes, their son was going to be the next big F1 driver and they weren’t going to let anyone get in the way of that. They burned bridges left and right, screwing over anybody and everybody to get their son what he “needed”. It turned out, what he needed was less of his parents, and when he turned 15 he decided he wasn’t into karting anymore and wanted to become a bass guitarist and DJ. I can’t actually fault the kid, though I could see his parent’s feelings about wasted potential that he certainly had, but his parents and the folks in this article are absolutely two peas in a pod.
I suspect everyone went to school with someone who had abusively obsessed sports parents. For every successful Tiger Woods story there are a hundred kids who got burned out and quit before they even hit varsity.
I knew several. One did get a shot at the pros, but never made a roster. The rest never amounted to much, athletically anyway. I would like to think they found success elsewhere, but I suspect not since their parents never prepared them for anything but an athletic career.
That’s a fair point. I have worked with two former Denver Broncos players, one who played in the 80s and another who played in the 90s, and they both had stories about parents who pushed their kids far beyond what was reasonable in the pursuit of getting the kid into the NFL. In both of their cases, they didn’t have that themselves and were infinitely grateful for that fact. Again, I don’t know that all kart parents are like that, but my small sample size implies it.
A roofer that doesn’t pull permits? Unheard of!
Not pulling them is one thing, but I’d bet the roofer would know whether or not a permit is required. Telling the homeowner one isn’t needed when you know it is – that’s another thing entirely.
We had a sidewalk replaced and the concrete guys didn’t bother getting the permit until the city inspector drove by while they were tearing out the broken section. A “friendly” chat resulted in a quick trip to city hall before the concrete truck arrived.
Then there’s my current dilemma – we moved after checking on whether we could put a shed on the back half of a double deep lot. It backs up to the right-of-way for a road that will never go all the way through, and the existing street ends at the edge of our property line. We were told (via email) we could build, there were no plans to extend the road, and we could pave or gravel to it from the end of the existing road if we wanted, but snow plowing would stop at the end of the city’s pavement.
Fast forward two years, after we bought property, moved in and did some other improvements to the house, and we apply for a height variance (local code has a 15 foot height restriction on accessory building but we need a 14 foot door for the camper so building would have been about 22 feet at the peak). They have no issues with the building plans, but want us to extend the road (originally to the tune of about $58,000) after which they’ll take over maintenance and plow it in the winter time. (Spoiler alert – the camper won’t be moved when there’s snow on the ground, so I don’t need it plowed.)
They eventually cut the requirement to gravel a foot deep and 18 feet wide, but we’d be on the hook for whatever future enhancements they deem necessary. (And there’s actually already gravel under the grass, but they don’t care.) I asked how small we had to go to avoid putting in the road, and were told if we do anything back there requiring a building permit, they’ll make us put in the road. Now I can’t even put in a parking pad for the camper back there (which would be required – not allow to park it on grass).
So now I’ve got a huge back lawn that’s good for nothing but mowing and maybe gardening, and they’ve pretty much killed our resale value.
It sucks being extorted for an infrastructure improvement that doesn’t need to be done.
Not sure it killed the resale unless every single possible buyer wants a 22′ high RV shed.
Anything requiring a permit will require the road being put in, regardless of whether a variance is needed. And just about everything requires a permit.
Unless you put that in the listing or the buyers do some extreme due diligence by presenting plans to the permitting agency before buying, you’ll be fine.
You don’t need to disclose that you had thought of doing something once but didn’t end up doing it.
True. There are no known restrictions on the property itself, and none of the dealings with the city were in writing (other than that initial email I mentioned, and our informing them we were rescinding the variance request and wouldn’t be proceeding with the project). We never got any formal notifications from the city on any of this (which is odd, given that they voted to extend the road and I would have thought I should have been notified about that vote by letter, being the adjacent property owner – I didn’t hear about it until my neighbor told me he read it in the paper, after the vote had already occurred. Then the city building inspector called and asked if I wanted to “negotiate” about it). Then we cancelled the project, and haven’t heard a peep from the city since.
What ticks me off is we did do our due diligence before we even put in an offer on the property. I feel like I was lied to. At the very least, massive deceived.
I would not be surprised if there were a change in city staff. Whoever gave you an answer, two years ago, may have changed positions and/or the elected officials have given staff a different direction to follow.
FWIW, if the city allows 15′ and you need a 14′ door, going to a “flat” roof still leaves 10″-12″ for the structure needed to support the roof. And while access from the back would be easier, extending your current driveway, to the back, would give you a better argument for not improving the existing right-of way.
There’s a sewer easement that cuts the property in half front to back, and another along side the existing garage and driveway out to the street. Basically the only way to access the back yard is from that right of way.
Doing $100K of construction without investigating permitting or regulatory issues because the paving guy said it was fine was a really good idea.
The “Ima do whatever I want” and “not in my back yard” aspects of florida man are colliding in slow motion.
Devils advocate:
What if he asked his neighbors, and they all said no, but he is (still) legally allowed to do it?
Should he still do it???
Sure why not, neighbors can be petty and against anything they perceive as “hurting their property value”. If it really pisses off the neighbors then they should move somewhere the local ordinances don’t permit these “undesirable” things. But rules around setbacks, noise, non-permeable surface limits, wetland protection, etc. all have valid reasons for existing, largely based around preventing your neighbors from getting pissed. In this case it seems the reasons the neighbors are angry and the permits aren’t likely to be issued have a lot of overlap. And if you’re looking for a “variance” to do something falling outside the local zoning rules, I think it’s often heavily based on neighbor input.
No. Want to build a track? Get 100+ acres.
“Should he still do it?”
That depends on what theory of ethics he subscribes to. Myself? I would probably choose to preserve the relationship with my neighbors. I live next to them all the time and it’s generally better to have a decent relationship with them than not to. But that’s just me. Obviously he’d be entitled to do whatever was legal. If I was his neighbor, I wouldn’t object to it, but I understand why others do.
Thanks for the update!
I was initially on team track guy.
But tossing gas on the fire by saying things like, “my neighbors suck,” he lost me.
Also, just a real lack of judgment in dropping six figures without truly confirming that you won’t have to tear it out.
Which is hopefully what occurs.
I can’t see him working out an amicable solution with this kind of confrontational attitude.
Cringe.
yeah it literally takes one phone call to city council to check if a permit is required. you will either get a definitive answer or a “come in and talk to an inspector with more details and he will be the one to make the call”
Playing the victim card tracks, but the race card? I take him more as a guy who frequently complains about minorities “pulling the race card” when they’re legitimately being discriminated against. And he must really think everyone else is as dumb as he is that his defense is calling a paver about whether permits are required instead of calling The Man himself (obviously because he at least strongly suspected the answer would be what he didn’t want to hear).
This couple is a cancer
There is so much asshattery in that petition, besides the bit that was called out in the article. Exhibit A:
It doesn’t matter if you have a 111 acre property when you build the track right up to the property line.
Exhibit B:
So you knew damn well there were potential regulatory issues here and chose to ignore any that didn’t favor you.
They knew exactly what they were doing when they built this track and figured they’d get away with it anyway. The one thing they didn’t know was how pissed people would be when they came in and f’d with their peace and quiet.
There was probably a way to do this correctly (electric carts only, respecting property setbacks, etc.) but that’s out the window now. I can’t really blame the neighbors for wanting it torn out completely based on the way this guy has behaved. This sort of thing should not be rewarded.
11 acres is not as big as this guy thinks it is. All the properties around me are 10 acres+ and I can hear it when other people run their tractors and stuff.
If he’d just made this a very fancy driveway, he’d have probably been OK.
30-40′ wide driveway and a set of traffic cones would yield just about all the practice the kid could use.
The road to hell is overconfidence usually male. This guy seems like the first person to complain if one of his neighbors did something to endanger his property value love this attitude of I can do whatever I want, but anyone around me can’t do what they want because of my property value. This guy is in the wrong about six ways and I hope he gets whatever he deserves. No sympathy.
Stupid January. I read that and immediately thought it absolutely couldn’t have been a year. Guess I forgot we started 2025.
That caught me out for a moment too
They should be required to say “last month” or “a couple months ago” until at least June.
He didn’t know he needed permits? Seriously? And he owns a roofing business? I had to pull a permit just to put a new enclosure around an existing shower in my master bath.
Granted, a lot of places don’t require permits for roof replacement, because they regard it as maintenance, but many do, and being in the general construction industry, you’d assume he’d have a greater awareness of these issues than the average person
The people who built my garage and carport wanted to start work before I had the permits, advising me that I didn’t need them to build, only to occupy, which was obvious BS, so I held them until I had all the paperwork in order. Permits cost money, but common sense is free
To clarify, I have farm fields on 3 sides of my property, if someone built a track on one of them, I really wouldn’t care, I’m not home much anyway. As long as it didn’t cause a drainage problem and flood my property or something. But, rules are rules, they apply to everyone. I wouldn’t be the one to complain, but if the county found out on their own or another neighbor complained, zero sympathy if proper planning permission wasn’t obtained before breaking ground.
Permits are for the birds.
More honestly, I’m a person that doesn’t always pull a permit. But, if I wanted to build something as obvious as a go-kart track, I’d definitely be investigating if a permit was required and getting one if necessary.
But new enclosure in my bath? Yeah, not fuckin’ getting a permit for that shit. (I also don’t think my municipality requires one for that if you DIY it, but that’s not really my point) But I’d be doing the work myself, so how would they know?
They usually don’t until you piss off one of your neighbors. Or when you sell the house.
We just sold a house we’d lived in for 25 years. We pulled permits for every single thing we had done, which meant inspections. That was a big help when we were making the deal with the buyers. “All permitted and inspected? We’ll pass on a home inspection.”
Pass on inspection? They may have a brain tumor. Was built to code doesn’t mean it still is.
They were willing to pay a huge amount over asking, as well.
FWIW, it was an Eichler home in NorCal, a mid century bit of architecture in the form of what was a tract home. We worked on it for 25 years before we moved it and every system in the place had been renovated. Roof, electrical panel, kitchen, furnace, water heater, windows, flooring, you name it.
We basically restored that place like a restomod, so sure, you could do an inspection. FWIW, in this area, it’s typical that the buyer provide an inspection report. We had that done prior to listing and no deficiencies were noted. That, along with the permitted work slid us right through.
It might be different where you live.
Eichler is desirable. I am very familiar with CA real estate, The buyer pays for inspections in all markets, what buyer would trust an inspection paid for by the seller? The inspectors are non deal killers, they are supposed to not stop the transaction. Last house I bought (this past July) I participated in the inspection myself. Into the attic, into the crawl space. I don’t trust inspectors even if I am paying them. I project managed the building of several major estates in L.A., Madonna bought one off of Sunset in Beverly Hills. JLo bought one in Bel Air. Brand new, 8 figure homes. And they had inspections done. Everything had been permitted and inspected. I even learned the secret marks that inspectors leave so that subsequent inspectors would know that it had been inspected.
In this market, everyone is still passing on inspections.
My whole property is pretty exposed to the street, if it was more set back and forested, I’d be more willing to gamble on something like adding a shed or a carport without a permit, but all it takes is a county inspector driving past and noticing something new that wasn’t there the last time he drove by and that’s it, with my luck, I’d be the first one to get found out. And, obviously, if you’re using a contractor for renovations and that contractor wants to keep their license, they’re going to pull permits for inside stuff
A county inspector driving past? They use drones now for aerial surveys to enforce codes and find scofflaws who put up unpermitted buildings or park junk cars in their yard, among other urban sins. Heck your neighbors probably have drones. It’s a sad place we’ve become, but all the more reason to protect yourself by doing your due diligence before breaking any ground.
I thought “I don’t pull permits” were the last words of old guys who blow their houses up messing with natural gas appliances?
It’s entirely possible to ignore permits but still build to code (and work safely).
Plus, while people are afraid of gas appliances, it’s actually super easy to do correctly and safely. Most natural gas systems are at like ~7″ WC after the regulator, which is nothing. A competent DIY’er can figure out the right tape for natural gas lines and NPT connections, and properly leak checking. There is more to it than that, but not much.
The problem is the road to hell is paved with overconfidence (usually male) and more people think they are competent DIY’ers than actually are.
I grew up learning to leak check with a match, lol. Now I use solution and a sniffer as a double check.
I converted from oil to gas, and added 2 gas furnaces in my house, all by myself. Totally possible. Leak checking is pretty simple and easy, and well worth it.
Actually, I ended up doing it twice because I undersized the pipe by one size the first time. Can’t recall why I didn’t calculate the correct one. But, bumping up a size gave me room to add 2 more devices in the future.
FYI, pulled permits and had inspection done. No chance I was taking that risk.
“A competent DIY’er can figure out the right tape for natural gas lines and NPT connections”
Its yellow, labeled as suitable for gas lines and sold in the same isle as water heaters.
“and properly leak checking”
Soapy water? Sniffing? A pressure check seems a bit much for hooking up a single fitting.
When I finished my basement, the city inspector said that sometimes the biggest issue with not pulling required permits is that if there’s a problem, insurance will check on the permits and deny the claim if they weren’t pulled. He also said that it can cause major problems when you go to sell if the city/county finds out because there could be unpaid property taxes (increase in value = increase in tax).
Yeah, I’ve never heard of that happening to anyone near me. A good chunk of my friends are DIY’ers, and none of us have had problems with any work we’ve done. That being said, we (mostly) follow code. The code we might not fully meet is things like number of necessary independent circuits in a kitchen remodel. The panel is likely full and replacing it would also require a service upgrade. Seems might expensive when you can just have the dishwasher and disposal share a circuit when it’s allowed by ~half the country, and you can save the panel upgrade for the future.
Plus, I’m still not convinced AFCI breakers are worth their nuisance trips on old builds.
I’m right there with you for many projects, but something larger like a basement remodel is pretty obvious when county records say it’s unfinished. I’ve never personally heard of anyone having an insurance claim denied for unpermitted work, but the only insurance claims I’ve ever heard about were for roofs.
If it’s a shower enclosure, I’m not pulling a permit either. If I’m doing the work myself, I know how it’s done, right or otherwise. If I’m having a contractor do it, I don’t want them cutting corners, so I’m pulling permits and getting it inspected. For me, there’s more peace of mind in having it pass inspection than there is in knowing it’s insured.
They are not. Hate the things. And the more they times they trip, the more readily they trip going forward. Another safety item I’m convinced is more about keeping the populace in a perpetual state of annoyance and frustration so that they lack the luxury of paying attention to how badly they fleece us than it is about any tiny bit of actual safety.
That all comes to light when you go to sell a house or if there’s a fire caused by unpermitted work. We walked away from making an offer on a place because literally none of the remodeling had been permitted. We did not want to be on the hook for that.
Sometimes permits are not required for asphalt paving, but are for concrete paving. It depends on each city though. They may still require a site plan though, so that they can verify proper setbacks. There’s a good chance that there is nothing in his ordinances to specifically deny this, but the city is going to try to find a way and will probably succeed. That’s why you see stuff like “Wetlands” arguments. You can’t fight city hall.
He’s not in a city, he’s in unincorporated county land, but it’s obviously more than paving, they moved in a lot of aggregate as fill and did a lot of grading and contouring, it was a really extensive project that clearly takes up a large percentage of their total lot
County governments in much of the South (and Maryland historically is part of the South) are frequently first-level or even sole local municipal government. Most of Fairfax County, Virginia is unincorporated – I think the only towns are Herndon and Lorton, because Falls Church and Fairfax City are separately incorporated (it’s a Virginia thing), and all of Arlington County is – but don’t think that’s not as controlled as any other suburban jurisdiction. Montgomery County, Maryland is similar, although there are more local cities and villages (Rockville, Gaithersburg, all the various permutations of Chevy Chase) that may be able to assert various levels of control, primary responsibility lies with the county.
Yes, that is correct, the previous poster was referencing a city, there’s no city, it’s the county
Don’t expect me to read and process a post thread before I reply. That’s un-American.
I agree 100% he should know a permit is required, especially in Howard County. If he lived on the eastern shore and he greased the right palms they would have looked the other way plus the neighbors would have been cool with it as long as they could use it.
I find it interesting this is getting so much attention or even so much hate, where I grew up I knew people that had dirt bike tracks or atv trails on similar sized properties, even that was better that the idiots that would do wheelies down the street on their ATVs at midnight in the subdivision I grew up in. I’m not saying it’s right but this seems like a whole lot less of an issue than loud dirt bikes or people using neighborhood streets for general assholery.
The kind of general assholery you’re describing probably isn’t happening in a neighborhood full of 10+ acre lots. I’ve seen plenty of it in cities, but not so much in semi-rural/suburban areas. I could be wrong though. My experience isn’t necessarily representative.
I’d check into this guys taxes. I’ll bet the cost to pave the track somehow ended up as an expense on his roofing company books.
100%
This isn’t a track, this is a very convoluted parking lot for my work truck!
They can find 100 BS ways to justify it in their own minds.
I’d love a neighbor with a racetrack in their backyard, but not this neighbor. What an ass.
As a business owner in the construction industry this dude knows regulations exist in most areas. Now he pleads ignorance, I’m sure some exists here, then race card, then hey can we work this out?
I think pulling the race card here is pretty pathetic. I formed my opinion when I thought they were just rich, white, assholes. There are plenty of times when race is part of the issue, and who knows, it could be for some of his neighbors. It still doesn’t make him right.
I had a conversation with a former coworker once regarding tax writeoffs. He said “If there is ever the slightest doubt we can write something off, we don’t. My wife has too many years working as an accountant dealing with taxes for the IRS to give her the benefit of the doubt if there’s an audit”.
I think this guy would have a little more sympathy if he owned a gym instead of a roofing company. Also if he wasn’t, apparently, a jackass.
I’d be hyped if these people were my neighbors. Heck, I get excited when my neighbor and his kids are playing with R/C cars in my cul-de-sac.
Sure beats the beehive my childhood neighbor put on our fence line…
Why are you covering this rich asshole? This dude seems like such a douchebag, and building this without permits means he’s either an idiot or he thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Either way, I’m on team anyone else.
Well said.
perfect post!
I concur much better things could have been covered vs this donkey fart
Doesn’t have to be an either/or, you know.
I’m sorry, but I still call Bullshit on this entire thing. I wouldn’t trust a roofer in the slightest about anything. Now he’s playing the race card?
Also, 11 acres Ain’t Shit. Sound waves don’t recognize property lines.
These people seem like absolute nightmare neighbors.
I used to be able to hear cars at my local track from my house three miles away.
I’ve also been black flagged from a track day for tyre squeal that was louder than the noise limit.
I’m happy with noise if I choose to move near it, but not if someone decides to build a noisy thing near me.
This reminds me when I used to play paintball and work at CPX sports (RIP) in Joliet IL and there was an auto bahn track down the road and you could hear the cars on the weekends guys were out there racing you could think paintball gun sounds would over power it but nope.
I’m surrounded by woods and still hear assholes driving around the roads at night at a greater distance than 11 acres would cover.
Indeed! 11 ain’t shit.
I’m surrounded by city – more suburban density and with a lot of water surface, but still a city – and I can hear the soft clang of containers at the port terminal a couple of miles away in the early hours when traffic dies down. It’s not loud enough to bother me, but yeah, so I suspect that go-kart noise travels quite a way out there, especially with relatively little to screen or block it.
I mean, yes, he should’ve used some common sense and checked to see if he did actually need a permit, but it’s a cool project and his neighbors are probably horrible HOA-ass NIMBY’s anyway, so I’m on his side.
Part of the problem is that HE would be a horrible HOA-ass NIMBY if his neighbors did anything he did not like. All he needed to do was check with them and check for regulations and permits. He is a grown ass man.
He should’ve, but I don’t really care.
My parents lived in Howard County for about 15 years for my dad’s job. I’m not surprised people are upset. Property values are completely insane and nobody (forget HOAs) wants anything to potentially mess with their values. Also, around there, a “farm” is usually just slang for “waiting for the right housing developer to offer me a better price.” To be fair, a lot of land there us also multigenerational (apart from the bedroom communities) so the NIMBYism is about as bad as I’ve seen anywhere in the country, for multiple reasons. You gotta work hard to protect that brick-faced, vinyl-sided McMansion with no landscaping, lest it slip below $1.5 million on Zillow…
Still have a hard time believing a roofing contractor didn’t know he would have to pull permits for this. Also, as was stated in the original post, it is the property owners responsibility to check local regulations. There are a LOT of property regulations in Maryland. While I would not discount the possibility of some racism going on in this particular area, I am more apt to believe that it’s the noise and lack of coordination that’s got the neighbors on edge. There are a lot of NIBY folks in this area. I have friends in Howard County that are letting part of their property go natural and some of their neighbors are having an issue with that.
You own a roofing company, but claim you know nothing about permitting? While almost every contractor I’ve worked with puts in their contracts that the customer is responsible for permitting, but they usually know if I need a permit or not, or tell me up front to check with my city what the permit rules are. BS that they were not aware of the process; more likely they knew no permit would be issued.
Even professionals make mistakes. He owns a ROOFING company, not a paving or driveway company. Granted it was presumptuous and stupid (and they admitted that), but I feel they did NOT know and assumed the company that specialized in paving these kind of things would tell them accurate information regarding the subject.
Just because you know what permits you need for one type of construction, does not mean you will know what permits are required for another. It’s like expecting someone who builds giant mining dump trucks to completely understand building a prius.
It is not their fault the paving company gave unreliable information, they just did not double check and paid the price.
Hello, I’m from ABZ Roofing and we would like to make an appointment to check you roof for hail damage. We promise your insurance rates won’t go up. We promise.
You must be in FL. I had about 50 companies call me after the 2022 hurricane. After I had my roof replaced with a shiny new metal one, I started saying “sure, come on over and have a look”. Figured I might as well let them waste their time. Was fairly hilarious to sit here, see them roll up, look up, then turn around and leave.
No, IL, but they are everywhere. Love the metal roof thing!
Trucks are different than Prius but a builder will know it needs an engine, fuel and tires.
No crap, everybody does. The point is they won’t know the specifics.
That doesn’t pass the smell test. He may know not know the specific code and permits for paving, but presumably he knows there is such a thing as code and permits and even the dimmest of bulbs might be a little curious as to why none were involved before paying quite a bit of money for a big project. This guy 100% knew exactly what he was doing and that he’ll be able to outlast the uproar and keep his track.
And that it would need to pass FMVSS, CARB, and EPA testing
This was major construction, a private road with grading, banks, paving, etc, we’re not talking about widening a driveway or adding a little parking pad here, it was a huge project. To not realize you needed permits for all of this is just complete idiocy, I mean, how could you not? Look at the scope of the work – why would the county have a rule that you need a permit to connect a small driveway to the street, but be totally OK with no permits or planning review or environmental review etc for something of that magnitude? It doesn’t pass a logic test
Where I am from you don’t need to pull permits to redo a roof. And I am reasonably confident that as he was told – no permits to pave anything that doesn’t touch a road, and I KNOW that no permits were needed to repave my existing driveway, because BTDT. You would only need a permit for a NEW driveway, because it has to touch the road to be useful. permitting requirements vary widely and wildly from permits for every little thing to hardly need a permit for anything. It all depends on where you live.
I’m on his side though – it’s his land. As long as he sticks to electric karts and reasonable times of using them, I would have zero problem with this.
I’m generally a live and let live kind of guy. It’s his property, etc. If he had followed the rules and done it properly, or if he had done it before the area was developed, I’d be on his side. However, he moved into an existing neighborhood and created something that’s considered a nuisance without following any of the rules.
Calling it a nuisance, given he is willing to do only electric karts and restict the hours the kid uses it, is debatable. It’s a big piece of property, to me this comes under the heading of people just being assholes. If they want to control their neighbors, then they should live in an HOA neighborhood.
Why? Their were apparently already rules set up by the local municipality to prevent it from happening, so what would an HOA have gotten them?
If these people didn’t want to get controlled by rules and laws, they should have either broken less obvious ones, or live somewhere where such rules/laws don’t exist.
The neighbors’ personal preferences and desires are meaningless if it violates county zoning rules, it’s up to the county in that case. I mean, ultimately the county is going to be able to control what goes on on your property, that’s how zoning works
Agree completely. Even if they didn’t specifically know a permit would be required, common sense dictates that they should have at least checked with the city/county. I’m an accountant, but if I wanted to put in a swimming pool I’d definitely check to see what permits were necessary first, even if the guy with the backhoe said it was fine.