A Neighbor Fought a Couple’s Backyard Drainage Plan at the Zoning Board. It Passed Unanimously, and Now He’s Threatening to Sue.

A couple who bought their house in 2020 wanted to fix how rainwater moved across their lot. They planned dry wells to soak up runoff and a new patio, and their next-door neighbor fought it at the zoning board, according to a TwistedSifter report published Nov. 3.

The board approved the project unanimously. Construction has started, and the neighbor is now threatening to bring in the town and a lawyer over the slope of the new driveway.

A plan that sends less water toward the neighbor

TwistedSifter senior contributing editor Michael Levanduski described a project that, on paper, helps the neighbor as much as anyone. The couple proposed dry wells to manage stormwater and a patio. Their town denied the patio permit, so they applied for a variance.

With an engineer and a planner working on the application, the plan would cut the share of the lot covered by hard surfaces from about 70% to about 50%. The homeowner said both neighbors stood to benefit from the change.

Impervious cover is the part of a lot that water cannot soak into. A fact sheet from the city of Lake Stevens, Washington, lists roofs, walkways, patios, driveways and even compacted gravel as impervious surfaces, and explains that the city caps coverage on many older residential lots at 40%. A lot at 70% sends far more water off its surfaces with every storm.

What a dry well does in a backyard

An EPA fact sheet on stormwater drainage wells lists dry wells alongside French drains, tile drains and infiltration sumps as ways of sending runoff and snowmelt below the ground instead of across it. The same sheet flags the main concern: runoff can carry sediment, fertilizer, pesticides, metals and salt.

That is why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency treats many dry wells as Class V stormwater drainage wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Federal rules authorize them without an individual permit as long as they do not endanger drinking water and the owner submits basic inventory information, and the EPA tells owners to contact their permitting authority before building a new one.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection adds a key distinction: dry wells release water above the water table, which gives the soil a chance to filter contaminants before they reach groundwater.

The neighbor’s testimony and the vote

According to the report, the neighbor argued at the zoning meeting that the dry wells would make stormwater worse. He also claimed that runoff from the couple’s driveway and garage threatened his shed, and said under oath that the other next-door neighbor opposed the project. The homeowner said that other neighbor actually supports it.

The neighbor did not object until after the couple had paid their application fee, the homeowner said. The board’s vote was unanimous in the couple’s favor, and the town keeps a transcript of the variance meeting on record.

The drainage fight was not the first. A few years earlier, the couple put solar panels on their detached garage, and the neighbor complained to the town about glare. A third-party glare report found no problem, but the town still asked the couple to move the panels. Afterward, the panels were found switched off by a hidden failsafe switch, and the couple paid for about two weeks of utility power before a new camera seemed to end the problem. When a landscaper later tried to clear a weed tree in the yard, the neighbor objected, calling it his “shade.”

Construction, a laser level and a driveway

Work began a few weeks before the homeowner’s post. Concrete was poured with dry wells under and beside the driveway, a ditch around the patio and a new downspout connection. When an electrician parked in front of the neighbor’s house for about 15 minutes to confirm the power was off before moving a line, the neighbor yelled at the crew to move.

A camera then caught the neighbor’s child using a laser level on the couple’s driveway. The neighbor claimed the driveway sloped toward his yard and threatened to call the town and a lawyer. The couple’s landscaper confirmed the grading was level and matched the plans the town required, and the town had inspected the work before the concrete was poured.

Why the homeowner isn’t worried

The couple is pressing ahead. The homeowner told readers that a lawsuit would force the neighbor either to admit his zoning-board testimony was false or to make false claims in a complaint, and that the meeting transcript is on file with the town.

The homeowner said they had tried kindness, including sharing food, without success, and now plan to ignore the neighbor. TwistedSifter’s write-up, based on the homeowner’s own online account, does not name the town or the neighbor.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: EgorovaSvetlana – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons