Board of Health denying Septic project

[Jennifer Petrillo]

We are currently finishing up the rehab on a beautiful 1830 Colonial flip house which we already have under contract. Last thing to be done...the septic. We knew when we bought it that the septic was shot, it was a "seepage pit" that had been condemned, so no surprises there. We have done septic work, including full installations, on other flip houses so we weren't concerned about being able to get the job done. Now the County Board of Health has denied the plan as presented by the septic engineer at their once a month meeting last night. They say the septic field is too small for the 3BR house. The house is on a very tiny lot in a small village, just like all the other houses on tiny lots that surround it. In fact, the village is a Historic District that is the oldest known settlement in the County and was the site of the local Sons of Liberty chapter in 1766! Anyway...the BOH felt the lot was too small for the new septic field and suggested...knocking down the garage to accommodate the new leach field, which we told them we would not do b/c it would remove value from our asset and also the house is already under contract to be sold with a garage. Then they suggested "losing" a bedroom and having the house rezoned as a 2BR instead of 3 BR...again, decreasing the value of the asset, which we refused. Then they suggested buying land from an adjacent property, which is crazy b/c that 1. costs us money 2. unlikely that an adjacent property would be willing to sell off part of their land 3. would require redrawing the lot lines and reassessment of taxes, etc. One BOH member told our septic engineer that they are allowed to refuse any septic plans, he told them that the state DEP requires that they make reasonable accommodations to allow the continued use of the property. What disgusts me is that we took a vacant ramshackle foreclosure and made it beautiful and useful again inside and out, improving the community and giving someone the opportunity to have an attractive, comfortable, newly rehabbed home and they are making it nearly impossible for us to sell it! And the system that is going in is brand new, state of the art engineering, 1000% improvement over an old seepage pit!! Any thoughts? I plan to go the next BOH mtg (not until end of April, of course) to plead our case. 

[David Sisson]

I find in these situations to:

1) Not lose your head. Listen to them calmly, and try to learn what their real concerns are. Sometimes you'll find that they are willing to work with you, if you make just one small issue go away. 

2) Be reasonable about things you can be reasonable about, but hold your ground about things you must hold your ground about.

3) See if it's a technical issue that your engineer can resolve with a different design, or maybe your engineer can better explain to them why they design will work. 

4) Explain to them that you are improving the design of the septic system, on your own dime, and you are kindly requesting their assistance to complete the project. 

I don't know much about septic design, but it seems that systems for 3 bedrooms are often designed to handle 4 bedrooms worth of flow, to be on the safe side. Maybe the engineer can resize, and better demonstrate the calculations  / how it works. 

I'd also be curious what their concerns are. Too small of a system? Too close to other properties? Too close to ?? Undersized system? 

Can the system be designed in a creative way? I have some friends who do septic design, they tell me that there's multiple ways of doing it, so maybe you need another engineer, or this one needs to just rework it.