New England B.S. Thread

Will do.

I don't fish it, but, my neighbor uses my yard to fish, it is stocked...

 

I saw a huge one while golfing. Thankfully that’s as close as I needed to be to save my round that day.

 

I'm on a small river, and there are indeed a lot of rules. Sheds are allowed as long as you're putting them in a spot that was previously lawn - you can't knock down trees to do it. They also still need to be 100 ft away from the water if I remember correctly.

I'd never be allowed to put up a bigger garage, though - not that I really could. There would be room to make it deeper, but not wider - the original owner went basically right up to the property line when he built it.

I have a ton of Japanese knotweed near the river and legally I'm not supposed to do anything about it, even though it's an invasive species. I can mow the existing lawn and that's about it.

 

Japanese knotweed. There’s a term ya don’t hear often.

 

Rivers in Massachusetts are a different beast - wetlands have a 100' buffer zone (and further Town dependent restrictions), however rivers and streams fall under Massachusetts River Law and have a 200' buffer from the mean annual high water line. While it helps to put a structure in existing lawns, these commissions are starting to get more and more heavy in requiring roof infiltration and best management practices.

 

Greenpeace to the clerks office. Calling greenpeace.

 

I could go on for days about the whole greenpeace movement and how it is slowly creeping into local commissions when permitting projects. I am all for sustainable development and doing the best we can when designing sites to be conscientious of environmentally sensitive areas, but some commissioners are taking it to whole new levels. Two quick examples:

-Did a parking lot expansion for a car dealership. One board member suggested we use pervious pavement as it will help ensure a better world for future generations. Tried to take a relatively simple project and turn it into a flagship LEED accredited design. The client was super pleased to hear that suggestion!
-Permitted a single family house lot near some wetlands and a vernal pool. One commissioner tried to halt the project to do a full long-eared bat study in the surrounding areas to make sure we wouldn't be removing any potential habitats in the future.

Countless other examples and it seems trying to permit projects now is becoming increasingly more difficult. We design drainage ponds to handle the typical 100-year storm event (over 8" of rain in 24 hours). I have had to explain how we are designing to deal with global warming and increased rainfall in the future; and while that is a somewhat relevant statement, I design to how the state tells me to design and no more. No client wants to lose 3-4 houses in a subdivision because we might get more rain in the future and have to enlarge a pond to deal with it.

 

Man I get that. Long eared bats. What about the all the other animals that actually live there. Lol.

 

I remember the 200 ft thing now. We had an issue with a fleet of travel trailers full of rowdy people appearing on the other side of the river. My neighbor tried to go through the conservation commission to get them kicked out. They said they weren't within 100 ft so there was nothing they could do. The neighbor said it was actually 200 because it's a river and the guy just kind of shrugged so who knows what our local commission actually knows and doesn't know.

I put my shed 100 ft from the river because I thought that was the rule, then I found the 200 rule for rivers and started worrying that they were going to kick my permit back. But then I found the exemption for conversion of existing lawn for a deck, shed, etc. so that must be why I got no pushback.

I found it interesting that you can plant native plants in that 200 ft zone, but not a lawn. Whoever owned my house originally broke that rule - satellite imagery shows it was all trees and he cleared it and made it a lawn after the rivers protection act became a thing. In my case, 200 ft from the high water line covers my whole property and part of the people across the street's.

 

Guy in my home town applied for removing trees by a lake. 10k fee, and they were likely to reject it. Or something like that. Maybe the town was okay with it but the company that came in needed work permits that close to the water, I don't remember exactly.

150$ chainsaw and a 5k fine. Which was reduced when he agreed to replant native trees.

The giant tall pines that were blocking his view of the water from his bedroom are gone, and the sapling maples are like 20' tall and won't grow as tall. And he did it right when he retired (bought the house, then did this) so he knew he was going to be dead before they became a problem again. But they were native trees so they counted.

 

Yep, that 200ft thing is a PITA.
There ARE ways around it, but, Conservation Commission, and Building Dept need to be satisfied.

Trying to do a Pole Barn, or steel structure that requires no excavation...

This is my last attempt. After that, I'm throwing in the towel

 

A friend of the family wanted to build an additional living space towards the back of his lot but the Town had passed an ordinance that no back lots or additional buildings were allowed unless the lot had an additional 300' of road frontage or had to be more than 5 acres. Neither was doable for him. A garage was allowed. So he built a garage....that he could live in. The town caught on but the building still exists and he still lives in it. I suspect the shit will hit the fan if he ever tries to sell it.

 

Not quite the same thing but...at our first house in the 80's my next door neighbor cut down an entire row of 25' pines between his house and the other neighboring house on a Sunday. Was sure they were on his property. They weren't. Thirty years later I can still remember the look on the other guy's face when he came home and stepped out onto his deck. He'd planted them many years prior for privacy for his pool. My idiot neighbor was lucky the guy only made him put up a fence. And when he did the fence himself he rented a post hole digger. Measured out for the post holes...but didn't account for the posts themselves, only the length of the panels. Takes back the rented digger, starts putting up the fence. Every hole (except for the first) was off...

 

I don't know why but that made me laugh.

Yeah, DIY doesn't fit all. I know a guy who has the joke "The only tool I keep in my toolbox is a checkbook"

There's a subreddit called treelaw I think it is. Laws about trees are not to be f'd with.

 

I hate that stuff... I hack it down with the weedwacker then spray it with killer. Something has been eating it on my property though, it's taking over the whole side of the main stretch coming up to my neighborhood and none of my neighbors are doing anything about it.

 

My weeds don’t have a name. But they are prevalent lol.

 

Not that stuff but I'm that annoying neighbor. Not only do I not give a shit, I am actively planting clover.

Fortunately my new next door neighbors I think are about as hippy dippy as me. The other side is less so, but they're cool at least.

 

location location location

 

Nothing wrong with a little clover. I created some bare patches on my lawn this summer, leveling and filling low spots that I seeded with both clover & grass. The end result looks great in my opinion.

 

I finished up my jamming a diesel heater in too small of a box project last night.