2019_11-26_PWETCpacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Mr. Freihammer advised that there were few commercial permits having a larger impact for which this situation could apply, recollecting only one or two others where this proposed fund could have been practically used without doing something extreme. Chair Cihacek asked if there was a net gain for staff efficiency with this recommendation versus inspection and recertification of BMP's. Mr. Freihammer noted that any project would have to go through some type of permitting project, but with residential projects, once a stormwater impact fee had been collected, it would be allotted to an account for larger projects to construct an oversized pond or rain garden, or by building an additional one in that area; and would not require long-term maintenance or recertification every five years. For residential projects, Mr. Freihammer opined there could be significant staff savings as well as savings for residents with no need for staff sending letters to property owners to prove their site was still working as designed. On the commercial side, Mr. Freihammer opined there may be fewer savings, and may only apply to those unique sites. Chair Cihacek suggested for the residential side, the same results may be able to be accomplished through another mechanism, such as buy -in versus policy, stormwater mitigation and assessment as described by staff, but suggested staff review whether or not there may be a different mechanism to do so and a different fiduciary function to accomplish the same goal without impacting current practices or changing a policy that may not actually need changing, with the recognized limited value of the policy from a commercial project perspective. Discussion ensued regarding potential buy -in through expansion and assessment with a potential credit for your lot if a project provides value to the surrounding area as well; examples of types of projects (e.g. recent Corpus Christi rain garden); whether or not the project and credit follows the property; how overbuilding area systems could tie in; staff management of 500 rain gardens versus only 50 stormwater projects with the city controlling their maintenance; and if and when the door closed for buy -in based on the project schedule. Further discussion included difficulties identified by staff for random locations and rationale for remaining within one of the three specific watershed districts; with the intended operation for the city similar to that of existing watershed districts to build up credits to be used for over -sizing applicable systems to address mitigation efforts and improve the overall capacity. At the request of the PWETC for better clarify, staff offered to provide more detailed information on the intent, and differentials between residential and commercial applications; and how the fee would be applied and where it would go. Page 14 of 17