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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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But are rigid setbacks (as the lawyers say) the least restrictive means of preventing your land from draining to somebody else's land? Instead, the code could say something like:

Your site plan should include a hydrologic study showing that your proposed building will not shed additional water onto any adjacent property. If your site plan does not include such a hydrologic study, then it must adhere to this table of default setbacks, which will produce a presumption (rebuttable by a hydrologic study) that your proposed building will not shed additional water onto any adjacent property.

That whole doing a study, having a plan, showing it to the governing authority commonly known as the zoning board which has certain laws/rules it must follow is where the lawyers in that long running story come in.