Tis – I’m sorry your experience differed so greatly from mine. You mentioned that you used ‘professionals’ to do your work. Are you sure that they were not to blame rather than the State?
The CSPA has specific targets for responding to permit applications. I believe (but haven’t double-checked the regs), that the DES has to ask for missing information within 30 days of you filing, or it is defacto approved.
Again, I would encourage you to attend one of the full day seminars they offer. I attended the one at Church Landing last August and met many of the DES folks that do the work every day, learned a lot of information from third party speakers they brought in, and was able to ask detailed questions and get first hand answers about my specific project (plus got a great breakfast spread for FREE – are you listening FLL?)!
Not to say that there aren’t valid reasons for having a professional permitting expert, I would just suggest that getting involved with the process first hand will be highly rewarding. For most of us, a house at the Lake is probably not only our single biggest investment, it is also one of the most important things for “living a good life”!
As I said in my previous post, being a general Yankee cheapskate is what initially drove me to doing it myself, but the benefits have gone far beyond the dollars saved. “Be one with the house”, and let the so called professionals do work for absentee homeowners
PM me if you’d like any additional information or I can help in any way… PIG