I live next to the DuPage River in Ill.
We want to add a one room addition to the house. Upon application for a permit, we discovered the emence labour intensive city, county, federal permit application. We had to hire a topographer to determine the new status of the watershed line.
They determined 1/8th of the room addition is on watershed land. We need to move soil elsewhere to compensate for the watershed land loss. Also our home has basement windows, original to the house, that are not on watershed land.
My questions are: Why is the watershed land increasing every 10 yrs, & not receeding? To keep our windows we need to build a retaining wall, with obviously a drainage system that goes along with it. We want to do it right, any advice?
Replies
We know so much more now than we did a while back.. Years ago it wasn't too uncommon to allow building in flood plains simply because the river hadn't flooded in recent memory. we now know how wrong that is.. Hardcover is the hot topic on my lake.. as a boy there were many swamps and wetlands around the lake and they acted both as a filter and as a reservoir providing the excess water a place to go to help avoid flooding houses that were built too close to the water.. With Lakeshore land being so valuable all that wetlands/swamp was filled in and built upon. Now a rainy summer can result in some houses going under water and during dry years some homes having over a 1/4 mile of beach ..
I guess what I'm saying is that your action have a serious impact on those down river from you and they want to ensure that things get better rather than risk the periodic flooding there used to be..
I know that's a complex answer when it sounds like you wanted something simple or just wanted to vent, but the world is a far more complex place than when I grew up. that complexity will have a cost...
Now the good news.. property that abuts a lake or river is the fastest growing (in value) property there is, more and more people want your property and there is only so much of it to go around.. Expect to see the value of your property grow at least 1 and 1/2 times faster than property nearby that doesn't abut the river..