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Flexible Development Policies Urged in Bay Clean-Up Plan
 NAHB has submitted suggestions on storm water management regulations and “smart growth” principles to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as regulators begin to implement an executive order to help restore the Chesapeake Bay.
The suggestions are part of NAHB’s continuing effort to ease what are seen as inevitable restrictions on home building and development as a result of the federal government’s new initiatives to protect the vast watershed, which encompasses seven states and the District of Columbia.
Regulators should not unfairly target home builders, said NAHB, and should instead address “all sources of pollution contributing to the bay’s deterioration,” with the greatest emphasis on the biggest sources of pollution, primarily agriculture and runoff from urban areas.
At a Sept. 10 press conference with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Administration officials said that the executive order marks a “historic opportunity” to clean up the bay.
The officials released seven draft reports, including initiatives designed to increase the accountability of regulators and expand their authority, to target the most fragile areas and to employ more innovative methods to keep the bay clean.
The report emphasizes agricultural operations and discusses how their nutrient discharges are affecting the health of the bay. Vilsak announced that his agency is preparing to offer more than $600 million to help feedlot operations and other farm businesses comply with the more stringent enforcement plans.
A Common-Sense Storm Water Management Approach
“In many cases it is more beneficial to the environment to retrofit an existing structure to better prevent runoff into the bay rather than hold new construction projects to higher standards which may be technically excessive and even impossible to meet in urban environments,” NAHB said.
NAHB also suggested that the EPA play closer attention to interstate water quality trading programs, which use economic incentives to improve water quality. This approach allows one source to meet its regulatory obligations by using pollutant reductions from another source that has lower pollution control costs.
Encouraging these kinds of programs will “lessen the overall costs of reducing pollutants to the bay while ensuring that agriculture is included as a major player in the reduction program,” NAHB said.
“The EPA Office of Water should be provided with assistance to develop language that can be included in federal storm water management permits as they get revised, to enable and to encourage states and localities to consider appropriate water quality trading in their areas. The federal Construction General Permit will be revised in 2010 and that affords the perfect opportunity to include water quality trading language in a federal permit,” NAHB said.
NAHB also asked the EPA for a more evenhanded approach to the rulemaking process that would allow not only environmental groups but also the regulated community to provide opinions before new rules and regulations are proposed. Low-impact development techniques (LIDs), in particular, it said, do not work in every application and should not be mandated.
“Had the industry been consulted, the agency would know that LID failures and related issues are now surfacing in locations struggling to comply with new LID mandates,” NAHB said. “Unfortunately, the EPA has not replied to industry requests to meet. NAHB again requests a meeting with the EPA to discuss this vision of no-discharge development and how best to utilize LID for storm water management in the bay’s watershed.”
Smart Growth Is Smart for the Bay, Too
NAHB urged the EPA to consider residential site development principles designed to reduce the amount of impervious surfaces, conserve natural areas, prevent storm water pollution from new development and enhance a community’s value and quality of life as advocated by the Center for Watershed Protection, including:
- Design streets for the minimum required pavement width (based on traffic volume) needed to support travel lanes; on-street parking; and emergency, maintenance, and service vehicle access.
- Reduce street lengths by examining alternative layouts to determine the best option for increasing the number of homes per block.
- Design street right-of-way widths for the minimum required to accommodate the travel-way, the sidewalk and vegetated open channels. Utilities and storm drains should be located within the pavement section wherever feasible.
- Maximize the number of residential street cul-de-sacs and incorporate landscaped areas to reduce their impervious cover. The radius of the cul-de-sacs should be the minimum required to accommodate emergency and maintenance vehicles. Alternative turnabouts should be considered.
- Where possible, use vegetated open channels in the street right-of-way to convey and treat storm water runoff.
- Review parking ratios by taking into account local and national experience to see if lower ratios are warranted and feasible.
- Reduce parking requirements where mass transit is available or enforceable shared parking arrangements are made.
- Provide compact car spaces, minimize stall dimensions, incorporate efficient parking lanes and use pervious materials in spillover parking areas.
- Provide meaningful incentives to encourage structured and shared parking.
- Provide storm water treatment for parking lot runoff using bio-retention areas, filter strips or other practices that can be integrated into required landscaping areas and traffic islands.
- Advocate open space development that incorporates smaller lot sizes.
- Relax side yard and front yard setbacks.
- Where practical, construct sidewalks on only one side of the street and provide common walkways to link pedestrian areas.
- Promote alternative driveway surfaces and shared driveways.
- Designate a sustainable legal entity responsible for managing both natural and recreational open space in each community
- Direct rooftop runoff to pervious areas such as yards, open channels or vegetated areas.
- Create a variable-width, naturally vegetated buffer system along all perennial streams that also encompasses critical environmental features, such as the 100-year floodplain, steep slopes and freshwater wetlands.
- Preserve and restore riparian stream buffers with native vegetation that can be maintained after the development is completed.
- Clear and grade the minimal amount of forests and native vegetation on the site to build lots, allow access and provide fire protection.
- Conserve trees and other vegetation by additional planting, clustering tree areas and promoting the use of native plants. Manage community open space, street rights-of way, parking lot islands and other landscaped areas to promote natural vegetation.
- Offer incentives and flexibility in the form of density compensation, buffer averaging, property tax reduction, storm water credits, by-right open space development and off-site mitigation consistent with locally adopted watershed plans.
For more information, e-mail Calli Schmidt, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8132.
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