Remember: when dealing with the Devil, you never really get what you expect.
With even a simple glance one can determine there is a bit more to it than a drought.
Considering that it would have only taken (in theory) a single engineer, and possibly an attorney in the last sixty years creating and submitting an affordable state-approved option to the wet septic tank and field, something tells me another round of 'few years of dry' won't really make a difference.
This is not the first dry spell in the West, it is just the first one that had to carry the burden of the population that is now on the land.
Trust me the elected are still very busy deciding who owns what.
It seems tens of thousands of acres across the state remain upside down just due to the cost of setting up this needed infrastructure prior to building anything.
Were it not for this primary factor, I could show you hundreds of listings right now for parcels five acres or greater, all for under $1000.00/acre.
In many rural subdivisions that are effected by HOA's or POA's, you need the majority of landowners in order to dissolve the HOA/POA; and you will find that (for a myriad of equally selfish and justified reasons) it rains gold coins more frequently than this occurs.
Counties do not usually do what you hope or expect; they do what the dollars tell them to do.
The County solution is usually to raise your taxes to gather funds to pave and run the pipes. The 1915 Bond Act comes to mind.
Counties can and do use the courts to assign back fines for violations that have been ongoing code violations.
These sort of properties remain on tax sale rolls for years due to the attached fines, until someone buys and assumes the debt.
If the next owner defaults, the property goes back to tax sale.
The frequent reply I hear to this topic is 'just do it'.
The usual stock
answer of 'just do it your way and get away with it for as long as possible' not only promises to serve freshly baked Disaster Surprise to your American dream, it also really spits in the face of the neighbor who had to go through all of the channels and expense of dealing with the system before being able to do the same.
I won't be surprised if such a neighbor feels resentful of my shortcuts and reports me for real and/or perceived code violations at every opportunity.
Acting indifferently to a community is not the way to become symbiotic with one; at that juncture, am I any better than the person who sneaks on to public lands to poach, grow cash crops, or excavate for minerals?
This just does not seem to me like the right way to make an impression on people I hope to live a long time near.
So the centuries-old dilemma of the human condition remains: how do you convince the "Haves" that they want to give a charitable opportunity to the "Have-Nots"?
Changing the mindset of the greedy and divided masses over something like a toilet, when they can't even come together on matters far more critical, is a self-destructive exercise in diminishing gains.
So rather than jump in the fire to fight it whilst being incinerated in the same action, I am asking if anyone has discovered any other options?
Because I still have not.
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