Are they?
I woulda thought so as well. But a friend of mine in the next town over has a huge house being built behind him. He asked to see the building plans, they told him he had to file a FOIA request, and then they denied that.
Not my issue so I didn’t ask for more details, but I woulda thought he coulda just waltzed into city hall…
And if they didn’t ask for a variance, I’m not sure a zoning board woulda been involved.
So he dug a pit and then installed this vertical pipe? To me it looks like he’s building a man-made pond. Is there a creek or something nearby that could be dammed/diverted to fill the pit? The vertical would be to send the overflow down through some underground pipes and back into the creek below the dam. That is a pretty big pipe for a pretty small pond if that’s what he’s building, though.
The lake at the Boy Scout camp I went to as a kid was constructed in a manner like this – an earthen dam with a big vertical metal pipe to send the overflow under the dam and into the creek below.
Our farm pond is designed like this.
It would not work for an overflow as it is flush with the bottom of the pit. No streams nearby.
I did think about a koi pond. A friend has a small one with a deep section for them to survive the winter. But a koi pond that takes up 90% of a normal residential front yard is odd. My son lives nearby and he and the neighbors haven’t heard anything about what it is.
I was at the son’s house yesterday so I walked over to inspect it. I just stayed on the sidewalk so I couldn’t get a good look at the lowest part. The culvert pipe has some sort of large square cover over it but I couldn’t see if it had an opening in the center. It might just be a surround instead of a cover. The bottom of the excavated hole slopes down to the pipe which is near to one end.
I did notice that the house on the next street over right behind this lot has a backyard pond with a fountain spraying up. I think this is the same thing.
The Auditor has an up to date aerial photo:
