Wait problems.

• Author: Snell, Lisa
• Position: Wetlands and land use permits

The hazards of backyard "wetlands"

FLORIDIAN LLOYD WILSON WANTED to build a home on a lot he owns. Then he found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had designated 260 square feet of his property--the size of a large room--as wetlands. The Army Corps made Wilson wait more than nine months before letting construction proceed.

A property owner who has any amount of land that has been designated as wetlands must navigate a public-notice-and-comment period, hire consultants to negotiate with regulators, and wait for the Army Corps to consult with as many as four other agencies before deciding whether to allow development. Environmental attorney Virginia S. Albrecht and environmental consultant Bernard N. Goode reviewed all of the Army Corps' 1992 applications to build on property that had been designated as wetlands. They found that one-fourth of the applications had wetlands of less than a quarter acre and just under half had less than one acre of wetlands. The average property owner waited 373 days to get through the permit...