uh right no I can I can start us out
we're going to go ahead and call to
order the March 10th 2016 meeting of the
city of isqua planning policy commission
um my name is Justin Walsh I am a member
of the commission and acting chair for
today's meeting um we do not have a
quorum today um for those people that
are watching us on television uh we are
always looking for new members and
you're encouraged to check out the
planning policy commission website for
information on that uh we'll just move
right into our main agenda item uh this
is on proposed isqua landus code
amendments uh for National pollutant
discharge elimination systems commonly
known as The
npdes Phase 2 Municipal storm water
permit uh presentation By Dana zat
environmental science associate and
Carrie ritland our surface water
manager thank
you so thank you for the introduction
and having us here today to um really
we're just here to share some background
about what storm waterer mpds permit is
and um what we'll be asking of you all
um throughout this year so this
presentation will hopefully um provide
some input on the permit itself and then
how the city and staff are going through
um updating um the storm water code as
well as reviewing our land use code and
the updates that those may include um
this is a public process and so um as
Trish mentioned we were at rivers of
stream board last Tuesday um and they'll
be further looking at our storm water
code and then the IR group The planning
policy commission um the land use code
um review and updates as well as um it
will be in the infrastructure and land
and Shore committees and um an
introductory topic of Council of the
whole in two
weeks so what is the storm water mpds
permit
um well really this is a permit the city
of isqua is under and it allows by the
department of ecology and allows our
city to discharge our Municipal storm
water into Waters of the state so
issaqua Creek tibits Creek Lake
samamish um and basically there are many
jurisdictions in the state of Washington
that are part of this permit so it's not
just isqua that um is under this review
that we're going to be talking about
today and and the code updates
associated with
it and just a little bit of background
the storm water mpds permit um it has
all of these five categories of which
the city has storm water management
program and objectives as part of it and
it's anything from public education and
Outreach um requirements to public
involvement activities um how we manage
and and um report our um if there's
pollution um that's part of the solicit
dischar discharge detection and
elimination system um and then the
controlling runoff from development
that's how we do our site plan review
and the requirements in our existing
storm water um code and then we also in
how our Municipal operations um cleans
our storm water our catch basins our
facilities in the city but today we're
really just going to focus on two two
things and then that is adopting our a
new storm water manual and what those
requirements are and reviewing and
revising to make low impact development
principles and
bmps um a common and preferred
option so again there's two parts of
this permit that the city is required to
um implement this year in
2016 that is adopting a new storm water
design Manual of which there are new
requirements within that manual that the
city is required to implement um one of
those new requirements that we'll talk a
bit about today is low impact
development or liid and what that is and
then that's looking at um reviewing and
revising our land use codes rules and
standards to make liid the preferred and
commonly used approach in site
development and this is a big definition
but really what low impact development
is is it's integrating storm water and
land use
management it's a strategy to look and
provide a more natural process um and so
it's integrating site plans and um the
treatment of uh Flo for flow control and
water
quality so today what we see a lot
around the city are more large
uh facilities that are like your wet
ponds or um vaults and they are in one
common space um but they have a job to
do and that's to treat the runoff from
our roadway system and detain flow
before it enters a creek or stream um or
a lake the liid approach breaks that up
into much smaller kind of like pocket
vegetative facilities or pervious
pavement we have a few here in in the
city and it integrates the storm water
treatment and flow control component
within the landscape and within um our
built
Community now the feasibility of low
impact
development is based on numerous
different site conditions so um it takes
into account the infiltration ability
how quickly the soil um basically traps
water water um what our seasonal ground
water levels are um and
how the site plan is what the Topography
of the site is and where liid can fit in
um so all projects have to do um field
test and feasibility to verify the
appropriateness of liid on a
site and Carrie ritland is going to talk
in more detail about the storm water
design manual and then I'll come back
and talk about some of the liid process
uh thank you Dana uh I'll give a little
background of uh these are the design
standards that go through development
review uh specifically on how to
size the flow control detention and L ID
and water quality
treatment so this uh we're doing this
year purpose is to replace the manual
that we have currently adopted which is
a King County
manual uh we're going to go with the
Department of ecology manual this time
time
around uh and what it does is covers the
three elements of stor water mitigation
that's
liid low impact development which is a
new element that
we're mostly talking about today and
also flow control and water quality
treatment and the reason I'm talking
about all three tonight because they all
work together just so that uh you see
how currently there's already quite a
few standards uh for storm water
mitigation and lad is the third
component so the most significant
changes coming up in 2016 at the end of
this year is uh in past years we had
this one acre threshold exemption that
allowed smaller sites to to follow
previous
standards older standards that's going
away and also the liid requirement is is
basically
new so
uh again on the L requirements uh
it's a feasibility assessment uh it's
not a kind of a blanket requirement you
got it you shall do it you have to look
at your site as far as your ability of
soils and groundwater to accept
infiltration for the most part and three
areas of the site three elements of the
site design are evaluated one's the
landscaped areas uh roof
runoff and the parking lot sidewalks and
Roads and that's the way the stand the
the the new manual is set up to evaluate
each one
independently and one important
consideration is that
uh the way that uh legally the way this
that storm water regul regulations are
set up as far as lad goes that it phas
two permit allows zoning codes to
supersede or reduce the LI
requirement and what that means that
let's say you have a zoning density
impervious surface
limit uh lad can't force you to reduce
that to make liid fit on your site but
that's not a there's plenty of other
elements that liid that comes into play
so that's maybe a factor in certain
developments so again quickly for
landscape it's all pretty much about
protecting soils from compaction and
soil amending so any soil Landscaping
you do have has full ability to
infiltrate storm water that falls upon
it or storm water that runs onto it from
uh roadways or from parking lots for
roof runoff these are the four things
you look at in sequence uh ideally you
disperse a runoff into your vegetated
areas on your side but you need quite a
bit of vegetated area to make that
work uh bio retention rain Gardens uh
you probably seen those uh city has
built several of those on city streets
in previous years downspout dispersion
and perforated stub out which is another
way of infiltrating your your down
spouts
uh then third element of the parking
lots all your hard surfaces on on the on
your site a dispersion you got basically
the same things as uh R ront
off again these are all evaluated in
this order this preference and as soon
as you hit one that works you do it and
you're kind of clear for that
category uh quick review so that's led
the other two are flow control and water
quality flow control pretty much
addresses store storm water Peak flows
all the way up to 50-year storm event
which is uh 4.5 in in 24 hours so it's
standards pretty high for controlling uh
the big runoff runoff
events uh applies new and and replaced
impervious surface so if redev
development occurs uh if they take out
existing pavement it's like you're
assuming it's forested as far as
mitigation and it uses things like
detention ponds vaults or infiltration
in the water quality treatment uh the
third one is uh the goal is to treat 91%
of the rainfall volume leaving the
site uh applies to pollution generating
impervious
surfaces uses various uh methods to
treat the storm water including emerging
Technologies this is a something that's
been changing uh there's been a demand
to create these new treatment devices
for storm water runoff and and uh
ecologies responsible for approving
those and uh each year there's a new
device they're basically filter vaults
different ways of filtering out
contaminant from storm
water so that's a quick overview of how
storm water development review
goes uh so take it back to Dana talk
about the development review um land use
code review that we're doing
so as Carrie said it's kind of important
to give a background of um what the
permit's requiring for the storm water
code update because it relates so much
to um what we're looking at and as a
background for the land use code
revisions that we're looking at um so
the objectives that we have is when
looking at our land use codes is to
consider if there's gaps or barriers in
our existing land use codes that limit
liid
implementation and then how we are going
to address those are we going to remove
those obstacles in our land use codes or
modify and update our codes and this is
all based on our
review and I think it's important to
note that land use code changes need to
remain consistent with um other needs
here within this City and the growth
management act the comprehensive plan
goals and the city's already adopted
zoning and development
Vision so the ecology permit requires
the city staff to review three topics
and that's minimizing impervious surface
minimizing the loss of Native vegetation
and looking at other measures to
minimize storm water
runoff so far staff have identified the
following um code sections that have
like a component of liid within
it and some preliminary items that we've
kind of pulled out from that review are
listed on this screen and it's anything
from looking at um maximum versus
minimum parking
requirements um can storm water liid be
in critical areas in the buffer are
there ways to um are there obstacles
already in these land use codes that we
need to look at and
eliminate so we have some clearing and
Grading um we're looking at our clearing
and Grading code and seasonal
restrictions so where we are now is kind
of where that screen was is are there
barriers and are there gaps to storm
water liid and existing
codes so what we will be doing in the
coming months basically by late spring
probably May um we'll be finalizing the
code review and releasing that to
stakeholders in the public and then
we'll be drafting existing codes for
review in public comment um so that will
be back to you um later this summer
probably in July and then adopting and
implementing new regulations and
standards so this is a timeline
projected for
2016
um as our public Outreach process and
the goal is to have an ordinance adopted
by October um and the permit requires it
by December 31st of 2016
so
questions of which we all could
answer so I want to go back to like the
very early slide and we don't even need
to go to the slide but okay explain to
me like the different levels of permits
so the city of isqua falls into what
permit two or is it phase two and then
the higher and that's population based
right is that so anything above what
population goes into what like King
County Seattle those are in yep and
those are the phase one permits and they
were under a first round of permits by
the department of ecology and it is
populationbased do you remember the
population 100,000 it it's it's much
larger so basically it's city of Seattle
King County sish County and Tacoma are
all under a phase one and a smaller
jurisdictions are under a phase two um
and that permit was issued basically
five years after the first uh phase one
permit and it's slightly different than
the phase one so is there a a time frame
to compliance or to what what is that
again so the phase two compliance with
this land use both both the storm water
code update process and the land use
revision um and revising our codes um is
by December 31st of 2016 okay yeah
all
right uh I had a I had a quick
question uh I you specifically mentioned
that uh where there were issues uh with
the low impact development uh the
current code growth management plan all
these things would supered it I'm
curious what has staff meble to identify
where we won't be
compliant I understand that uh the one
supersedes the other and that it's not a
legal issue but I am curious where we
won't be able to meet those needs at
this point we're just under at this
point in our review process we've um
kind of focused on areas that we need to
look further into and kind of
highlighted those areas um and we kind
of separated out into options and
recommendations to address going forward
so it's too early yet in this review
process to say where
um where we would be going would be
would be adoped and it's really a it's a
review process it's there's not a right
or wrong um it's how we're going to look
at our codes and and try to alleviate
and remove some of those barriers that
exist um do you want to give an example
of of kind of a barrier that we would
well I just want to clarify that really
the only real requirement all this is
adopting the new manual the uh the
process ecology requires us to do is go
through the land use code review to to
help implementation of what's in the
manual so
U C's in full compliance with the permit
we have been since uh day one uh this is
process of uh evolution of the permit
and that it it's basically reissued
every five years as phase two permit so
every five years there's potential for
new codes to be adopted because of
changes in the manual because it's
always uh it's like most regulations
there's the job job is never done so
there's always new information that
comes up and uh they kind of trickle
down to uh requirements into this permit
uh as we adapt and uh and make these
changes is the city addressing areas for
current development that's already
existing for citizens to be able to kind
of make those changes in their
neighborhood are there any kind of
recommendations from the city on how to
change to make be more compliant with
low impact development or already
existing development is there
well there's an education component that
mainly addresses that uh as far as
development
goes the per only
requires you to go through if there's
Redevelopment uh if you trigger
permitting that requires you to do storm
one it's it's basically like if you have
more than 2,000 square feet of new
impervious replaced or added it
triggers our codes and that's sure I
guess my question questions less about
requirements and more about uh what the
city is uh if there's an option that the
city is doing of providing information
for people who want to address this in
their community and kind of make those
CH make those changes sure um yeah
that's that'll be part of the education
program uh there's quite a bit of
efforts going on regionally to educate
the public programs and we try to tap
into that the best we can that would be
great
yeah and and the city has voluntarily
yeah
excellent right yeah we've done several
projects on on our own uh to uh
demonstrate that and you know it's a big
job you know this town city's been
around for 100 years so we're trying to
do undo a lot of development impacts to
go way back and so I'll probably take
100 years to unwind it and get back to
uh kind of the uh point where ecology
thinks that you know we're everybody's
managing storm water way it should and
the impacts pug sound are alleviated and
and and things like that all the all the
major water uh environmental goals kind
of fall down in here are quite a few of
those fall upon the permit is uh does
our soil INF
infiltrate uh in certain areas it's a
pretty complex geology in the isqua
valley and the Hills uh so I would
assume like an old town it it would be
fairly consistent or is there pockets of
different that they still have to go
through it's really variable it's uh if
you uh if you imagine the Lakes mamish
Basin and how in geologic times we're
under a lot of ice and and water so
there's a lot of really
poor uh Pete and and uh uh Muk soils
Seattle Muk it's actually a term in the
Lower Valley as you get up towards East
Fork isqua Creek it's actually really
good grably soil it's outwash so it's
really variable because of the geologic
environment that this whole area went
through so it's it's really site
specific excuse me so is there I mean
basically if someone an applicant came
in and wanted to do something so he has
to go through the liid process and his
steps and the feasibility study you kind
of have a good idea if they can
infiltrate or not I mean just based on
location right right yeah we have a just
from General mapping we have a pretty
good idea where to steer them but they
it's still even though our large scale
Maps may say one thing they still have
to look at their site right they still
have to do a Geotech report or some sort
to figure out if it really will yeah
still those those Maps would be useful
and something like what you know you're
talking about for a community based well
most most likely you're going to
infiltrate over here so you know yeah
let's think of ways
liid things that we can do over in this
area that will allow for
infiltration just I'm just thinking
here yeah it'll be a long process uh
permits here to stay so it'll be kind of
a you know this a lot of this is fairly
new you know it's going to take some
education on everybody's part to get up
to speed on it it uh it
is quite a paradigm change for a
development review to look at it this
way right well yeah Rainer Boulevard is
the best example
uh all the work we've done there last
five years
uh on Holly Street by Isa Valley
Elementary
um Central Park oh yeah Central Park up
in the highlands pavement rain
yeah and then the new
uh Parks maintenance facility so yeah we
have quite a few projects
uh it's l it works uh it does help
reduce your the sizes of other
facilities conventional facilities
whether it's detention or treatment
because you're basically you're taking
the volume of water away before it gets
has a chance to get off sight and where
you have to treat it you know before
discharge
so uh there is a an economic incentive
to do it if if if uh feasible on the
site have you um heard of salmon safe
for the it's a I think it's called
salmon safe or you know what I'm talking
about yes I went to a meeting about two
months ago and uh this
presenter I mean it the basically said
storm water that goes directly
into and into and affects the fish or
the storm water that goes through the
amended soils in liid and how it affects
the fish it was really really eye
openening so it made me really a big
proponent of uh of liid facilities
yeah it is
uh you know I I truly believe it's the
most effective way to deal with stor
storm water because you're basically
keeping on site and
infiltrating and or at least allowing it
to percolate through soils which have a
a great capacity to take those
contaminants
out
U it's it's a
yeah all right want to add anything else
um no I I appreciate the uh the initial
look at it but I think we're going to
need a little finer detail before I
can kind of questions I have one of the
things that I I I would stress that I
would really love to see is the
incentivization um be very strong for
the developers to to take it not just to
the minimum lid requirements but to the
next level as they're going through and
doing this so we can stay a little bit
ahead of the curve as we
develop exactly Yeah we actually been
looking at that there's a couple things
you could do whether it's you know
utility rates or some sort of you know
density credits or or something to
create that carrot for developers to do
a little bit
more here it definitely works better
than this sck yeah um well thank you so
much for the presentation very
informative uh especially for someone
like me who has never been through this
revision process before so yeah um thank
you yeah we look forward to seeing those
changes thank you for your time tonight
um as with uh every other meeting uh we
will ask if there's anyone that would
love to make a public comment uh seeing
only City staff and no one raising their
hand outside of that I believe we will
adjourn the meeting at
6:58 e