County planning director Joy Hill plopped down a thick stack of files regarding complaints and in-process investigations into planning and zoning violations. 

That’s just her share.

“My staff and I sat down and we looked at all of the violations we have on record right now,” she said. “And some of these already have letters that have gone out. Some still require a bunch of research. And we do have a rash of development that has occurred in Ralston.”

There are reports of people allegedly putting in septic systems they weren’t permitted to, building where they aren’t supposed to. In Ralston, a major problem is zoning that doesn’t account for the small lot sizes, where one person’s septic system may be far too close to another person’s well, but neither have access to city water and sewer infrastructure. 

Hill said her department simply doesn’t have the manpower to respond as quickly as many would like to issues. 

It’s just one of many symptoms of the explosive growth in Park County the last two years, she said at a Park County Land Use plan meeting over the summer at the Cody Library. 

“When we know about them, we go after them,” Hill said. “We have piles of violations, they’re very hard to enforce. We spend hours to make sure a violation really is a violation.”

On Tuesday, prior to the start of another county planning and zoning meeting which included another handful of planning and zoning matters, Hill said as busy as they are, the staff has to prioritize issues. 

“It just takes time and some people get very frustrated with how long that can take, especially if they’re the neighbor who’s being impacted by the violation,” she said. “And we do try, especially the ones that are what we call on fire, like ones that really are drastically impacting a neighbor. We try to really get to those right away, so that we can get things moving.”

Septic systems are often at the top of that list, whether it’s a failed or unpermitted system. She said while an installed septic system without a permit may be just fine, planning staff need to ensure that’s the case in order to ensure neighboring properties aren’t affected. 

“Septage coming to the surface or potentially impacting waters in a neighborhood, that is absolutely tops,” she said. “Anytime somebody puts a septic system in without a permit, or they have a failed septic system that is urgent. We try to get those out the door right away and meet with those people very quickly, because we want to try to remedy those rather quickly.”

Of course, staff only finds out about potential violations when told, often by neighbors, and they can’t simply take the neighbor’s word for it. So they need to investigate.

“When you have a rash of unpermitted development, like we have had — some of these these violations have been in place for years, we’re just finding out about some of them,” she said. “But you don’t just send somebody a violation notice — you have to investigate. An investigation takes time. So it means we need to visit the property to take photographs, we need to do some historic checking to see if staff had addressed the property in the past. And searching through those records can be very time consuming.”

One way to avoid so many violations is to make the punishment more painful. Recently county commissioners raised the fine for putting in an unpermitted septic system to $1,000, and Hill said that’s already been enacted a few times. 

In extreme circumstances she said some part of a septic system may have to be unearthed to prove it was installed correctly if the landowner can’t otherwise prove the process was done right via pictures or documents. 

“We’re not usually in the business of making it difficult,” she said. “We actually want to help you get your system fixed because it’s for your own health, safety and welfare but also for the neighbors.”