RobinL7 (North Carolina)
Posts: 45
Posts: 45
Posted:
Hi, I have gotten such great feed back from this site, I hope you can help me. I have not written sooner because we are waiting for some legal advice but our attorney who has not responded yet and it this is a rather complicated situation.
We live in a rather rural LOA, I am the secretary and on the road committee. A new landowner and who recently became a new director too came to a meeting about 7 months back complaining of storm water runoff in his back yard. We on the road committee investigated and discovered that his septic field was in a valley and got saturated when there were heavy rains. It turns out the county approved the septic field as long as there was a diversion ditch to divert the water away from the field. The landowner/director pointed out that the road he lived on converged with another road that formed an intersection and the water runoff was due to the fact that each road converged at a single area, the front of his lot where his driveway culvert never adequately accommodated the runoff.
Additionally the storm water naturally flowed along his property into the basin that is his backyard/septic field. This situation has never been an issue as we know of from the previous owners. This new landowner bought the house with this existing issue and asked the board to rectify it. He asked the board (association) to install a very large culvert under one of the roads to redirect the water from his backyard. The board was really thrown, we asked him to bring us more information, call in an engineer and we might consider it. We did get a cost estimate between 7 - $8,000 for the installation of the culvert. Our associations dues are approximately $22,000 annually so this was a really big deal. And after our research and discovering that the county only approved the building of the house and the septic field if a diversion ditch was established it was understood that unless more information was brought to our attention this suggestion for the installation of a culvert was unacceptable.
This fall the landowner/director excavated his driveway and installed a new culvert. Our association does not have any clause that requires pre approval of such an installation and when asked the landowner just said he was working on his problem. The excavation project became enormous, he raised the height of his driveway and unbeknownst to us added soil to block the path of the water that naturally flowed to his backyard. Recently as a result of a number of heavy rains the entire community has witnessed the results. The sections on either side of the new culvert are literally pools of water, the mailbox stands are under water and people can't get to them.
We have had a civil engineer come out to give us advise and he said that probably a culvert should have been put in originally when the road was installed, but that the new culvert the landowner installed was too high and did not accommodate the water flow properly. Today we had major rains the intersection is covered with standing water, flowing over the road and it will ice over in the next few days. The intersection is very dangerous now for many of residents. We are getting in an engineer here soon to advise us on our options but nothing can be really done until we get some warmer weather and after a thorough detailed engineer's report has been conducted.
I am willing to consider a compromise as I see this landowner had a real issue, but I am just one director and we have some pretty angry people around here right now. So here are the questions. The land along the roadsides is owned by the Association, the culvert is actually on the association's land, it is an easement right of landowners to break through the easement to install a driveway. (1) Is it illegal to alter land to redirect stormwater away from your property onto another property owner's property? (2) What recourse does an association have if a landowner actually alters the association's land to redirect the stormwater off of his property onto the association's roads?
Thanks, sorry for the long set up to these questions. Robin
We live in a rather rural LOA, I am the secretary and on the road committee. A new landowner and who recently became a new director too came to a meeting about 7 months back complaining of storm water runoff in his back yard. We on the road committee investigated and discovered that his septic field was in a valley and got saturated when there were heavy rains. It turns out the county approved the septic field as long as there was a diversion ditch to divert the water away from the field. The landowner/director pointed out that the road he lived on converged with another road that formed an intersection and the water runoff was due to the fact that each road converged at a single area, the front of his lot where his driveway culvert never adequately accommodated the runoff.
Additionally the storm water naturally flowed along his property into the basin that is his backyard/septic field. This situation has never been an issue as we know of from the previous owners. This new landowner bought the house with this existing issue and asked the board to rectify it. He asked the board (association) to install a very large culvert under one of the roads to redirect the water from his backyard. The board was really thrown, we asked him to bring us more information, call in an engineer and we might consider it. We did get a cost estimate between 7 - $8,000 for the installation of the culvert. Our associations dues are approximately $22,000 annually so this was a really big deal. And after our research and discovering that the county only approved the building of the house and the septic field if a diversion ditch was established it was understood that unless more information was brought to our attention this suggestion for the installation of a culvert was unacceptable.
This fall the landowner/director excavated his driveway and installed a new culvert. Our association does not have any clause that requires pre approval of such an installation and when asked the landowner just said he was working on his problem. The excavation project became enormous, he raised the height of his driveway and unbeknownst to us added soil to block the path of the water that naturally flowed to his backyard. Recently as a result of a number of heavy rains the entire community has witnessed the results. The sections on either side of the new culvert are literally pools of water, the mailbox stands are under water and people can't get to them.
We have had a civil engineer come out to give us advise and he said that probably a culvert should have been put in originally when the road was installed, but that the new culvert the landowner installed was too high and did not accommodate the water flow properly. Today we had major rains the intersection is covered with standing water, flowing over the road and it will ice over in the next few days. The intersection is very dangerous now for many of residents. We are getting in an engineer here soon to advise us on our options but nothing can be really done until we get some warmer weather and after a thorough detailed engineer's report has been conducted.
I am willing to consider a compromise as I see this landowner had a real issue, but I am just one director and we have some pretty angry people around here right now. So here are the questions. The land along the roadsides is owned by the Association, the culvert is actually on the association's land, it is an easement right of landowners to break through the easement to install a driveway. (1) Is it illegal to alter land to redirect stormwater away from your property onto another property owner's property? (2) What recourse does an association have if a landowner actually alters the association's land to redirect the stormwater off of his property onto the association's roads?
Thanks, sorry for the long set up to these questions. Robin