Possible wetland on portion of raw land I'm buying

[Bill Coleman]

My wife and I are in the process of buying 0.46 acres across two parcels. One of the parcels potentially has a portion of it within a wetland but this is yet to be confirmed. We have wetland up to the boundary of the property for sure but our parcel is built up about 3 ft above the wetland parcels adjacent to it. I'm trying to confirm what we might be required to do in order to make this property suitable for a small 380 sq ft accessory dwelling unit (to act as a short term rental). 

There's not much info online and Army Corps site is not a help either. Building dept is impossible to reach right now. 

Does anyone out there have experience with this sort of wetland/raw land purchase?

[David Sisson]

Here (MA and RI) I'm often using the local GIS websites to find the rough boundaries of wetlands. Our local department of natural resources (different in RI and MA) have differing requirements for setbacks from the wetlands, but the process is fairly similar - you end up getting a wetlands biologist to "flag" the edge of the wetland (literally, set little flags into what they consider to be the edge) and then you hire a surveyor to survey the property, including the locations of these flags. Based on the required setbacks from your DNR (or whatever governing agency you have) you'll have a setback from this edge (sometimes 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet, etc) which is a no-build zone. If you want to build in the zone anyway, you'll need a variance (probably).

All this means you'll need professional help...but you can get free help (for now) by investigating local GIS resources, and reading up on the local requirements (probably from the DNR). If the city/town has a conservation department, go talk to them.