New County Regulations to Address Stormwater Concerns
Earl Bradley
Anne Arundel County is proposing welcome changes to its regulations to
address the requirements of the recently passed State Stormwater
Management Act.
Other changes are still needed, however, says the Sierra Club’s Earl
Bradley.
The objective of that act is to retain runoff on a development site
through nonstructural measures, such as infiltration trenches and
raingardens, rather than through structural measures such as large
stormwater ponds. The amount of clearing on a site is to be minimized,
and natural vegetation is to be retained to the maximum extent
possible. This new approach is called Environmental Site Design.
Particularly pertinent are the proposed changes to the Subdivision
regulations noted below, most of which have the full support of the
club.
- Provisions promoting the use of cluster subdivisions
and
environmental site design will mitigate the impacts of new development.
- The new requirement for a Preliminary Plan, previous
to the Site
Plan submittal, will appropriately establish a process similar to that
for Sketch Plan approval for subdivision review
.
- The provision for transfer of density from rural,
critical or
environmentally sensitive areas to Town Centers will allow a way to
test the concept of TDR’s (Total Daily Runoff).
- The provision of a section relating to the
characteristics of Open
Space and Open Area will, it is hoped, promote the protection of
contiguous areas in designated greenways.
- Another section appropriately requires a
modification and thus
public notification if a developer proposes to retain forest less than
the forest conservation threshold, in addition demonstrating why he
can’t make the conservation threshold and cannot retain priority forest
areas.
- A reduction in the minimum size of the residentially
zoned lot on
which a forest conservation easement can be placed, from 10 acres to
one acre, is appropriate – but only if development is prohibited on the
entire portion of the lot on which the easement is to be placed.
- The Group strongly supports the requirement in
Section 17-307 for a
100-foot stream buffer, as was recommended in several of the Small Area
Plans.
Our concerns about omissions in the proposed revised subdivision
regulations, which have been passed on to the county, are two-fold:
- The information provided at pre-submission meetings
is sometimes
inadequate. Minimal standards for information provided at such meetings
should be added, including the location and size of proposed structures
and roads and the location and potential adverse impacts on
environmentally sensitive areas.
- The restriction in the Board of Appeals regulations
that any issues
decided in Sketch Plan approval can not be appealed at Final Plan
approval greatly limits the utility of the Final Plan community meeting
requirement. This meeting may be the first time that adjoining property
owners, community groups and other interested persons are made aware of
issues that may be of concern to them. Any affected person or group
should be able to appeal a sketch plan approval within 60 days of
submittal of the holding of the community meeting on the proposed Final
Plan.
Copies of the proposed regulations can be found on the County’s web
site www.aacounty.org under
the portion devoted to Planning and Zoning. |
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