New rules for managing water runoff passed by the Snohomish County Council on Wednesday aim to make Puget Sound cleaner and prevent erosion, but some say they will drive up the cost of development.
The changes should bring the county in line with federal and state rules under the Clean Water Act.
“I get a lot of complaints when new developments go in from people downstream,” Councilman Dave Somers said. “These new standards are meant to hold that water on site and reduce the downstream impact to adjacent property owners and to the environment.”
The new regulations are an attempt to comply with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, commonly called NPDES.
The County Council passed four related ordinances by a 4-1 vote. The Democrats on the council all supported the new regulations, while Councilman John Koster, the sole Republican councilman, called them “perhaps the most onerous regulations we have passed to date.”
“It flies in the face of affordable housing,” Koster said after the hearing.
The new regulations change the fees paid for grading and drainage.
Permits for moving dirt, for example, used to start at a couple of hundred dollars and go up to a maximum of $23,000, depending on the amount of cubic yards were involved. Now, those fees begin at $350 and can increase to a maximum of nearly $35,000 for the largest jobs.
The extra costs won’t just come from higher fees.
New developments may need to use more land for bigger detention ponds or use more expensive techniques to hold water such as underwater detention vaults.
One of the six people who spoke to the council at Wednesday’s hearing was Mike Pattison, a lobbyist for the Master Builders of King and Snohomish Counties.
The builders group recognized that the county must comply with state and federal guidelines, Pattison said, but he asked council members to recognize that the rules would drive up costs and decrease the amount of building lots they can use.
“Going forward, be mindful, it is expensive,” he said.
Three of the people spoke were affiliated with the Snohomish County Farm Bureau, which persuaded the council to amend the rules to exempt most commercial farming activities.
“When they accepted that amendment, that gave farmers a lot of help,” said Ed Moats, a public affairs consultant with the farm bureau.
The county had been under an order to adopt new stormwater guidelines this year.
The effective date is Sept. 30. Not adopting the regulations could have triggered financial sanctions against the county by federal and state agencies, plus the potential for lawsuits by third parties.
The new rules also are meant to encourage low-impact development techniques that reduce runoff by leaving vegetation in place or building with pervious surfaces that allow water to pass through.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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