Tax deed sale - Land permits

[Srikar R Madadi]

Hello all..

I recently purchased a 1.5 Ac lot in a residential neighborhood through tax deed sale in California. The lot is marked as residential zone(R3) in the Zonal Maps and there are no recorded liens against it. I made a site visit and it looked like a plain land. Post auction when I approached the planning department for permits, they say the lot is marked for detention pond for the community in the subdivision and unless I get a drainage study done that determines that the detention basin is unnecessary or is over-sized, no building permits can be issued on the property.

  I understand that in Tax deed sales the onus of checking everything lies on the bidder and I should have checked with the planning department before the auction but I feel like its misrepresented in the Zonal maps because of which I ended up buying a detention pond for 60k. Has anyone been in this kind of situation? Who does this kind of drainage/detention pond studies?
 Appreciate any suggestions on a way out of this situation.

Thanks