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A judge will decide whether Crow's Nest developer needed permit to do soil testing. Date published: 10/28/2006 By MEGHANN COTTER
By MEGHANN COTTER
A Stafford County court will decide whether a McLean developer has cleared too much Crow's Nest land without a permit. K&M Properties, doing business as Stafford Lakes Limited Partnership, disturbed more than 2,500 square feet of the peninsula while creating access for soil-testing equipment last month. The developers didn't submit plans, get a permit or pay the fees county officials say that amount of bulldozing requires, and the county issued a stop-work order on Sept. 13. But the landowner holds that those steps were unnecessary and the clearing irrelevant for the type of project. A Circuit Court judge will hear arguments Nov. 7 and rule on whether the work qualifies as land disturbance and decide if Stafford Lakes needs to file a belated clearing application. Attorney Clark Leming, who represents the developer, said his client was just complying with a new drainfield ordinance. It requires the preliminary subdivision plan, rather than later construction documents, to include proof that each lot can support a septic system. "All we were trying to do was test for a portion of the property not covered in a prior application," Leming said. Each soil test takes less than an hour and all holes are refilled with the same dirt that was removed, court records explain. The process also involves removing vegetation and creating trails between test pits for equipment. Leming argues that county and state codes don't consider that kind of work a land disturbance when it relates to drainfield testing. But Steve Judy, a deputy county attorney, contends in a Sept. 15 letter to Leming that those laws apply to repair work on existing septic systems, not developers who want to eventually install drain fields. The county has never required permits for similar projects, court documents say. And no other stop-work orders have been issued in the past five years for such activity. But officials say in court records that any failure to enforce land-disturbance requirements in the past does not exempt Stafford Lakes from the rules now.
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