Item 7: PH - Ordinance on Stormwater Development Standards

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ATTACHMENT B -----Original Message----- From: HANDY Rob (SMTP) Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 7:04 PM To: *Eugene Mayor and City Council Cc: KEPPLER Peggy A; WALCH Therese Subject: Testimony: Stormwater Ordinance (Please include in the public record...thanks, Rob) April 10, 2006 To: Mayor Piercy and Eugene City Council cc” Peggy Keppler Therese Walch Re: Ordinance Concerning Stormwater Development Standards Comments made at the March 13 work session by Councilors were appreciated by the public. Having an integrated approach to stormwater policy and implementation across City departments will be helpful. One Councilor suggested that the community’s values and important details were yet missing from the draft ordinance. The City attorney explained that the ordinance is the place where explicit goals of the community should be incorporated. I ask that the hearing be kept open for a week to allow more comments to be made to the record. Additionally, I ask you to postpone enacting this ordinance until after completion of the River Road/ Santa Clara Stormwater Basin Plan. My understanding is that this ordinance is a key part of the implementation of the comprehensive set of Basin Master Plans. Along with the capital projects lists in each of the individual Basin documents, the ordinance is supposed to be the main vehicle for implementing the Basin Plan provisions that apply to private property under development around the City, including in our neighborhood. Without the River Road/ Santa Clara Basin Plan being complete, enacting this ordinance before you is putting the cart before the horse. Although the ordinance appears to be heading in a “green” direction, the devil is in the details, and this ordinance stops short of including the natural stormwater conveyance systems important to water quality and flood control. In River Road and Santa Clara, the bottom line to me is this: Large areas of our neighborhood have a very characteristic and different drainage system than other areas of the city. Natural swales and roadside ditches, drywells, no storm sewers. Without our Basin Plan being complete, how will you incorporate our values and the devil in the details that will preserve and enhance the characteristics and natural drainage systems in our area? Since the plan for our area is not yet done, and we've not had formal public comment on it, does this means that any special aspects of our neighborhood drainage that might later be identified as needing to be addressed via this ordinance or other implementing devices ---will NOT be, because the implementing ordinance is being adopted BEFORE our plan is done. It is a "cart before the horse" situation for our neighborhood, though not for the others whose Basin Plans are done.