08/08/2025
Permit updates!
With the east winds jacking up many local shorelines over the past few days, I'm hopping on here to give everyone an update on how quickly the multi-jurisdictional, multi-level, sometimes multi-public hearing, environmental shoreline review process works!
You call me, I sketch something on a napkin and give it to the regulators at the local, state, and federal level... and then I snap my fingers and we have a permit granted within a day... and p**f! your contractor drops everything he is doing on another job-site, moves all of their equipment, and starts on your job the following day.
NOT!
Sorry folks. If your shoreline is currently washing away at an accelerated rate, there is no "emergency permit" that bumps you to the top of the line. Unless a sewage system is deemed by VDH to be in imminent danger of failure, or unless a home is in imminent danger of structural collapse as deemed by local building officials, there is no "emergency permit" for a stormy weekend or a hard east or northeast wind for a few days.
I don't make the rules. Your elected officials do. Reach out to them if you are in disagreement with this, and other, regulations they pass.
The process to place structural erosion control BMPs along a shoreline is a lengthy one, that involves three to four government agencies, and typically at least one public hearing at the local level. There are some alternatives that can circumvent that lengthy review, but they still take at least 30 days... and the project must meet certain qualifications.
So, do me a favor when I upset you with these previously stated facts; pick up your phone and ask your elected state and federal officials why the process is so cumbersome.
If they shut down all the regs tomorrow, it really wouldn't bother me. I'd just go get a job where I'm not constantly being yelled at by either property owners, neighbors, local regulators, state regulators, or federal regulators.
I wonder what that is like. 🤣
