TO:  Ken Lanfear, City of Florence, Public Works Director
FROM:  James R. Hansen, P.E., Brown and Caldwell, Project Manager
DATE:  March 13, 2000
PREPARED BY:  James R. Hansen, P.E., Brown and Caldwell
REVIEWED BY:  Paul Bucich/Brown and Caldwell
SUBJECT:  Task 6 Technical Memorandum: Ordinance, Code and Development Standards
PROJECT:  BC #17146: City of Florence Comprehensive Storm Water Management Plan

Introduction	2
Objectives	2
Recommended Storm Water Ordinance	3
Recommendations	4
References	5
Appendix A Storm Water Ordinance	5

INTRODUCTION

This technical memorandum includes a recommended storm water ordinance for supporting the City's Storm Water Management Plan.  As appropriate, a commentary is provided for each major section of the ordinance that explains the purpose and benefits of the recommendations.

A single storm water ordinance is recommended for guiding the City's development, operation, and maintenance of the public and private storm water collection system.  The ordinance addresses a number of issues, including: city wide storm water management, flood protection from storm water and groundwater sources, guidance for future development, water quality protection, development submittal requirements, environmental protection, operation and maintenance requirements, construction and inspection requirements, and a number of miscellaneous provisions.  Within the ordinance, there are a number of policy statements and development standards that define specific requirements for the development, construction, and maintenance of the storm water collection system.

OBJECTIVES

Storm water ordinances should be tailored to meet the specific needs of a community.  We do not recommend adopting a storm water ordinance from another jurisdiction since no two communities are exactly alike in their topography, climate, demographic distribution, types of storm water problems, economic resources, politics, and municipal structure.  Instead, the storm water ordinance for the City of Florence should be structured as to define a storm water management program that will satisfy community and city objectives for the program.

A number of Stakeholders Advisory Committee meetings were held between spring through fall of 1999.  These meetings included selected representatives from the community, the public at-large, City representatives, and the engineering consultant.  As a result of these meetings, a number of objectives were formulated that define the overriding purpose of the storm water management planning effort.  The specific objectives are defined as follows:
 

• Protect private and public property from storm water and groundwater related damage.
• Maintain public access to critical facilities at all times.
• Protect the quantity and quality of the aquifer.
• Provide improvements that will limit negative storm water related impacts on the community.
• Implement a storm water management program that will satisfy the current, and to the extent possible, the future regulatory requirements.
• Develop a storm water management plan that defines the required improvements and their associated costs.
• Develop a storm water management plan that will not adversely impact wetlands, creeks, streams and the rivers while meeting the needs of the City.
• Protect or enhance the quality of life of the area.

• The recommendations of the storm water management plan must be implement able from a physical, economic, and political perspective.
• The recommended improvements must be maintainable by the City within its current structure (personnel and equipment), or within a modified structure that can be funded.
• The recommended plan shall identify funding options that the City can explore to help finance the recommended program.
• The recommended storm water ordinance has been structured to help achieve these objectives.

The recommended storm water ordinance has been structured to help achieve these objectives

RECOMMENDED STORM WATER ORDINANCE

The recommended draft ordinance is show as Appendix A.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommended storm water ordinance contains a number of requirements that will be new to the City and to the community.  Therefore, it is important that there be agreement between all parties that the final language of the ordinance is for the common good of the community.  Since these requirements will impact the community in a variety of ways, we recommend that the City and the public participate in the review and comment process.

We recommend a multi-phased review process for the Ordinance.  First, the enclosed draft Ordinance should be provided to all the major divisions of the City for their review and comment.  For example, the Ordinance will directly impact planning, community development, engineering, operations and maintenance, real estate, finance, and general counsel.  For successful implementation, an agreed upon overall approach to storm water management is required.  Based on comments from these various groups, the draft Ordinance should be modified to reflect the City's collective approach to managing storm water.

Next, the Stakeholders Advisory Committee (SAC) should be given the opportunity to review the Ordinance.  Their comments should be considered and be included in a revised version of the Ordinance, as appropriate.  Simultaneous with the SAC review, major stakeholders in the community, including: developers, builders, engineers, special interest groups, and others as determined by the City should be given the opportunity to provide input into the ordinance adoption process.

The final version of the ordinance should include input from a cross-section of the community.  While the process will take time, it attempts to include all parties in the development of the ordinance, thus improving the potential for successful Council adoption of the Ordinance.  Also, the review and input process will be concurrent with the review and input process of the Storm Water Management Plan.

(Contact City Hall for copy of References included in Technical Memorandum)