Urgent! Need Help with County

[Bubbles Galore]

I have been working on getting the proper permit in place for the Razor I have purchased. The township doesn't have a problem with me doing it, but they had to get approval from the county since there is theorhetically an increase in water usage.

Well I get a call from the township last night right before they close telling me that they talked to the county and they are going to make me install a water reclamation system and I will have to buy more "packets" ( I have no idea what this is) from both the county and the township since I am putting this new wash in.

Has anyone ran into this type of idiocy when upgrading an existing site? I know new sites are prone to this type of thing, but this just seems completely excessive. Does anyone have a copy of SSCWN's water study along with any tips on how I can combat this?

A little background is that my site was an 8 bay self serve. We converted one of those bays over to a dog wash and now we are converting a second one for the automatic.

I am freaking out a bit...any help will be appreciated.

 

[car washing systems inc]

Sounds like around here, you go for a permit and they say ok but you have to put a side walk out in front. I would check with a lawyer.

 

[Waxman]

First of all, relax. Getting riled won't help, especially w/government (speaking from experience). You have to figuratively 'buy them a fruit basket'.

1. If you don't already have it, add an r.o. reject reclaim. There is your reclaim for your IBA. Just plumb it into the feed tank on your razor and the city will not know the difference between this and an expensive underground system.

2. Get figures of 2 ss bays water usage vs. 1 IBA./petwash. Base figures on your basic wash with fewest passes and a poodle. I bet between the r.o. reject reclaim and the dogwash, your IBA setup will not be much if any of a net water usage increase.

Go get em tiger; er...pussycat I mean.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

Thanks for the tips guys, I hope to have a meeting set up with the drain commission and township later this week.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

Meeting is Friday at 10 a.m....Thank God the ICA has the information on their site...once I get a copy of JJ's report from SSCWN, I should be all set...

 

[Red Baron]

Just another example of government erecting obstacles because they think that's their purpose.

 

[MikeV]

When I converted one of my self serv bays to an automatic, I ,of course, had to get permits and all that. The city wanted to charge me something like $90,000. "environmental impact fee". After a few weeks of back and forth negotiating with then, we got it down to around $18,000. What a hassle that was. Someone else wanted to put in 2 touchfree autos not too far from me, the city told him that he would have to pay the same $90,000. environmental impact fee, he decided it wasn't worth it to build his car wash. I think this is just a scam to line someone's pockets on the back of the hard workers.

 

[rph9168]

In many cases these fees are rather arbitrary and if you either have data to support your case or complain enough to the right person you can get them drastically reduced or even eliminated. In some small towns you really need to negotiate on water and sewer rates. In one case a small town wanted the operator to run a fire hydrant line over half a mile his site to get a permit. They would not budge so he dropped the project. About a half a year later a large company built a warehouse down the road from his site and the line was put in. He found out that the city paid for the line.

 

[sparkey]

Got to love them regulations. Keep putting democrats in power so we can get more regulations then wonder why the jobs keep going away.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Got to love them regulations. Keep putting democrats in power so we can get more regulations then wonder why the jobs keep going away.

And you are so sure:
His county is not republican controlled?; and
The regs were not put in place when repubs were in control?

 

[JJJakubowski]

Surprise, surprise --- no real surprise

Earl, I am surprised. You violated rule #1 for lawyers:

"If you do not know the answer --- do not ask a question!"

Anyway, the answer to your question:

Yes, hell, yes!

Davison is in Genesee County. Flint ("AFL/CIO union central") is the county seat. The area is sooooo very painfully, notoriously, generationally, mindlessly, unilaterally inbred Democrat it's grotesque. A tragically comical symptom and symbol of the endemic "disease": Michael Moore is from Genessee County and lived in Davison.

JJJ/SSCWN

 

[JJJakubowski]

Addendum

I should have specified (rather than just implied) something in my previous post:

Bubbles Galore is located in Davison, Michigan (in Genessee County).

And, BTW, John and his sharp BG wash can be found gracing a page in the Fall/Winter issue of the SSCWN.

JJJ/SSCWN

 

[pitzerwm]

I doubt if its a party thing, government employees need to justify their jobs, so they keep writing rules to keep the boredom away. Most of them couldn't run a lemonaid stand if they started with $1M

 

[seattleguy]

I doubt if its a party thing, government employees need to justify their jobs, so they keep writing rules to keep the boredom away. Most of them couldn't run a lemonaid stand if they started with $1M

2nd this! Regardless or party I don't think in recorded history any bureacrat has ever voluntarily reduced the size of their own budget. It going to take a politico with seriouly large ba&*s to ever untangle all the red tape we have nowadays.

 

[rph9168]

Most politicians spend their timing trying to keep their job instead of doing their job. Unless we reduce government spending, especially on non-productive members of our society and illegals, things will get worse rather than better. Politicians are famous for their rhetoric but not for positive action. In the case of local politicians like this it often creates a quagmire of regulations and red tape that makes it difficult to get approvals. Unfortunately this sometimes leads to stall or stop a good business from becoming a better one.

 

[Randy]

Well Bubbles, what happened at the meeting last Friday with the Township?

 

[Bubbles Galore]

Sorry guys, I have been so busy with the install of my Razor that I haven't had the time to respond.

The quick breakdown goes something like this:

- I applied for my building permit and they submitted everything to the county drain commission (standard operating procedure according to them).

- I am contacted by the drain commission and am told that I must buy more "capacity" at an estimated cost of $35k.

- I freak out

- I set up a meeting between the Township, Drain Commission and myself.

- After the posturing and sifting through the political talk, we did some simple math and it was easily seen that I am no where near my capacity. They have my site rated at 12 R.U.'s where 1 R.U. = 315 gallons per day. Extrapolate those numbers and my site is rated for 113,400 gallons per month...to make a long story short, my site only uses between 70-80k gallons on a per annum basis.

- Once the elementary math was concluded and I explained the water conserving features of the new Razor, they essentially granted my building permit almost instantly.

- The Drain Commission said they would like to monitor my peak usage and such, but seeing as how I am not even at 10% of my rated usage, that really is a moot point.

What frustrates me the most is that this was essentially extortion. Had I not requested the meeting and dived deep into the details I could have essentially ****ed away a serious amount of cash. I'm just glad it's over and I can focus on getting the unit installed.

Thanks to everyone for all their help both public and private. Walking in with over 300+ pages of documentation to substantiate my claims really helped.

 

[Whale of a Wash]

A strong case where info, knowledge, and homework paid off. Do you realize how many people would just throw the money at the problem to make it go away. They get used to the big guys just cutting them a check.
Congrats on the good luck with county and the new Razor!!

 

[Rudy]

This all reminds me of something that happened many years ago in front of the local planning board.

There was a councilman who wanted my vacuums to be placed on a timer to disable them between the hours of midnight and 6am.

When I explained to him that there MIGHT be 3 customers a month vacuuming at those times....and that a "disabled" vac might invite mallets and tire irons. I went on to explain that I had sound data from a certified acoustical engineer (the equipment supplier had the data).

"Sir, I have data that shows that the ambient noise from the adjacent street/highway is louder than the sound footprint from any of my vacs. Essentially, you'll not hear the vacs because of the noise from the street....and here's the data to prove it!"

His sneering reply, "I'll tell you what College Boy.....If you want approval, that's the way it's going to be.....".

Don't you love it when the truth gets in way of the facts????

 

[pitzerwm]

Rudy, That's when you inform him that the next time he sees you that it will be on the 6 o' clock news, and talking with your lawyer.