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Summary of policy changes and recommendations to improve stormwater management
Deborah Reid, Technical Director Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance Spring 2018
Goals of recommended changes:
Table of issues and recommendations:
| Issue | Current code or policy | Recommendation | Support |
| 1. a. Flooding incidences continue to occur directly downstream from new development built under current stormwater rules. Specific Examples: Wortham Oaks in the Extraterritorial Jurisdictional area Preserve at Castle Hills in District 9 where increased runoff has caused downstream flooding. Litigation is pending. | a. The City’s codified preference is for new development to pay Fee-in-lieu-of (FILO)1 versus on site detention. b. Drainage report calculations that have met current requirements for new developments may still result in increased flooding on downstream properties. | a. Require a minimum of on-site detention for 25yr event that includes a water quality component and fees to support future inspections. b. Add an additional factor in “run-off” calculations to consider individual site conditions. | a. On-site detention will better protect downstream properties that receive stormwater from new development while decreasing peak flows. - This decrease will result in tax dollar savings as the size of required regional detention facilities can be reduced. - Distributed infiltration points better mimic predevelopment hydrology and increases recharge of soils and the aquifer. b. This method is used by the Corps of Engineers because calculations and models are not sensitive enough to pick up every specific condition on each site and results can easily be manipulated. |
| Issue | Current code or policy | Recommendation | Support |
| 2. Floodplains are not maintained in a “natural” state, which when kept in a natural state provide flood control and water quality benefits. This goal has been cited in every city planning document since 1997 but is not followed on an individual site basis. a. Variances are given to the Tree Preservation ordinance section which protects trees in the floodplain; 10 variances were requested and approved by the Planning Commission in 2017. b. Floodplain development permits are allowed in the current code; 389 were issued in fiscal year 2017. Issue c. Flood control strategies continue to be developed and implemented using concrete, tree removal and floodplain manipulation without stream bank or water quality remediation or restoration. The Corps of Engineers has issued multiple site violations to the City, putting citizens’ FEMA insurance at risk. Specific Examples: 1) Ira Lee flood control 2) Barbara St. flood control 3) Huesta Creek, Six-mile Creek, creek between Joan Price and Science Park, and Olmos Creek d. Taxpayers’ dollars are being used to assist in bringing floodplain property out of the floodplain for development. Specific Examples: 1) 2017 Beitel Creek bond project; remove vegetation, reroute the creek to “reclaim” floodplain and allow a parking area for private usage. 2) Near US 281 & Jones Maltzberger; new parking area allowed once the City had created additional capacity in a nearby regional facility. | a. Unified Development Code (UDC) 35‐523 (h)2, “significant trees shall be preserved at eighty (80) percent and heritage trees at one hundred 100 percent preservation within both the 100‐year floodplains and environmentally sensitive areas”. By ordinance, variances to the Tree Preservation ordinance must go before the Planning Commission and all variances requested in 2017 were approved on a site basis to allow removal of trees in the floodplain. There are no records available for other administrative variances given that may have impacted floodplains and their stormwater. b. Plans Floodplain development permits often require tree removal or other floodplain treatments that go unmitigated. Justification is based again on calculations that may indicate no impact to “base flows” while there may be impact to flood stage flows when a stream or river is out of its banks. The resulting damage can be flooding to downstream properties and destruction of the riparian zone3 and its ability to provide water quality and flood control benefits. Current code does not enable staff to review for water quality/ecological impact. Current code or policy c. Currently, little regard is given to environmental impact to floodplains. There is a mindset of just moving water through to the next segment of stream as quickly as possible. Flood control projects and strategies continue to: - Remove vegetation, thus increasing flooding downstream and exacerbating water and air quality issues; - Utilize concrete channel stabilization without a water quality component before discharging into a “natural” tributary or major stream; - Neglect to use their tree surveys at the initial design phase, thus creating the requirement for additional mitigation to the Corps of Engineers. – Not include LID components are to prevent additional pollution and facilitate debris removal. d. The City has a policy to use tax payers’ dollars to reclaim property that is “at risk” or in the flood plain for private development; justified by the increase in property taxes. | a. Develop a policy that approval to such variances impacting stormwater and water quality is the exception not the rule. Add a feature to the City’s building permit software that documents administrative variances, so they are recorded, and results can be evaluated to determine if code modifications are needed. b. Empower Transportation and Capital Improvement Projects Dept. (TCI) staff to allow review by a new position to be created, fluvial geomorphologist /ecologist to determine impact beyond base flow. This staff person would also have purview to review flood control and other public projects. Ensure that Stormwater review staff and inspectors are trained to fully implement and facilitate Low Impact Development (LID)4 and natural channel design to increase their effectiveness in working with consulting engineers. Recommendation c. Direct staff to minimize impact to riparian areas, including trees, during all projects and maintenance operations. Require that tree surveys are used in the initial design phase and utilize the skills of the fluvial geomorphologist /ecologist to ensure that projects and maintenance operations minimize immediate negative impact to water quality and long term negative maintenance. In addition, require future City Council members to receive a briefing on this aspect of flood control operations so they can better direct and support improved practices. d. It is recommended to end this practice, but any consideration to do so in the future requires a thorough financial analysis that includes long term impact, stormwater management, water and air quality considerations. Such actions should be reviewed by City Council. Council Agenda review packet should include the impact analysis. | a. Tree removal, dredging in jurisdictional waters, and filling in the floodplain will cause some negative impact downstream even if it is only on an ecological or water quality basis. A floodplain may have the “capacity” to receive additional stormwater, but there will be a negative impact to ecological functioning and water quality benefits may be destroyed. Currently, flood control is being managed like traffic, which most often has been effective in protecting property. It is now time to overlay this policy with the perspective and analysis for impact to water and air quality. By making this shift operations can refocus on maintaining the vegetation along streams and their tributaries in a more sustainable manner. Increased use of vegetation and reduction of concrete will also reduce air temperatures thus reduce the production of greenhouse gases while increasing carbon sequestering. b. Training and empowering design, review, and inspection staff will allow them to have confidence to work with consulting engineers and encourage them to incorporate LID and natural channel design that will reduce the negative environmental impact of projects. Currently, there are certification programs available that will give credibility to the City’s efforts. Support c. Other cities have documented that preserving these areas and constructing additional wetlands has saved flood control dollars while providing additional benefits, including air quality/climate change resiliency. The stormwater runoff and other benefits from trees have already been analyzed and quantified by past tree canopy analyses completed for San Antonio.5 This strategy has an even greater positive impact on taxpayers than many currently designed and implemented flood control projects and practices. Initiating new adaptive maintenance practices along streams will redirect efforts away from removing trees and associated vegetation, thus reducing negative impacts and citations issued by the Corps of Engineers. Work in the floodplain and its jurisdictional water should be limited and include a remediation plan.7 With the assistance of the staff ecologist and training, the need for heavy equipment in the floodplains will be reduced thus saving tax dollars while promoting water quality, flood control resiliency, and improved air quality. Training is essential for every staff person before they are given responsibility to maintain these environmentally sensitive areas that are vital to our well-being. d. Tax relief or some other compensation can be used to offset development limitations on these environmentally sensitive properties. It will be a big step in the right direction for the City to recognize the ecosystem services6 that they provide. |
| Issue | Current code or policy | Recommendation | Support |
| 3. Every major stream and river monitored in the San Antonio area has segments of impaired water that does not meet state or federal requirements. Water contact may be unsafe. Although water quality in our streams and rivers is cited as a major goal in San Antonio’s planning documents. Practices to meet this goal are not used in most municipal projects and day-to-day operations. a. Most municipal projects being constructed today do not contain a water quality component. Specific Examples: 1) Downtown sidewalk project between Flores and Main. 2) 2017 Fire Station at 1410 S WW White Rd b) Currently, new projects except for those over the recharge zone, discharge stormwater that is considered a pollutant into the City’s drainage system. c. Mowing or other vegetation removal within the riparian buffer at city parks, golf courses, etc. | a. Water quality components such as LID are typically not being incorporated into transportation, municipal building, and curb and sidewalk projects. b. New development, parking lots, dumpster areas, etc. discharge directly into drainage systems/ streams without treatment. c. Tree and vegetation removal practices, including mowing, occurs along streams to reduce occurrence of litter in a single stream segment, “improve” aesthetics, and give the public visual or physical access to the water at all points along banks. This practice along bank edges removes the ability to slow or provide stormwater filtration, not only eliminating previously provided water quality benefits, but also de-stabilizes banks and can cause loss of property. | a. Ensure that a water quality component is included in all municipal projects and any projects where City funds will be used. Give staff the ability to include these components on projects that are already in design or construction document phase. Request water quality practices to be used by other governmental entities; county, MPO and state. Require water and air quality modeling/analysis to be used during the feasibility/ environmental assessment phase. Utilize Stormwater utility fees for gap funding and installing retrofit water quality/debris collection components at major discharge points before the stormwater enters a “natural” stream. b. Require a minimum of on-site detention for 25yr event that includes a water quality component. c. Develop a maintenance policy and train staff especially SAPAR/ public golf courses, etc. to maintain a riparian buffer of trees and vegetation that is kept at a minimum height of 6” high or greater. Utilize interpretive signage to educate the public on the purpose of “grow it and slow it - no mow zones”. | a. San Antonio and TXDOT both hold MS4 discharge permits. The major goal of a MS4 permit is to reduce the discharge of pollutants to the maximum extent practical. San Antonio collects the Stormwater utility fee to assist in this goal. Currently, main uses of the fund have been to build operations facilities, sweep streets and remove sediment within channels. By requiring water quality components, maintenance activities can be shifted so that sediment and debris can be collected at one point within a LID component, reducing dredging and vegetation removal operations that now occur along entire channels. These current practices destroy aquatic habitat and remove vegetation that promotes water quality. b. This will require UDC changes and restructuring associated fees. c. Vegetation is crucial for preventing streambank erosion and thus the total suspended solids form of water pollution. The shorter vegetation is maintained, the less the plants can produce root systems and foliage sufficient to filter stormwater and protect banks. Another benefit to less mowing will be to reduce emissions at the source from City equipment. |
| Issue | Current code or policy | Recommendation | Support |
| 4. Taxpayers continue to pick up stormwater costs for development as indicated by the above and by the cap placed on Stormwater utility fees shown in the next column. By capping fees, those facilities with the greatest amount of impervious cover are not paying their share of what is needed to maintain current infrastructure and to assist the city in meeting its clean water goals and its federal MS4 permit requirements. | In 2014, Stormwater utility fees8 for the top 10 accounts were reduced by up to 83%. This trend continues. | Ensure that developments are assessed according to their impact on the City’s stormwater infrastructure. Offer credits where property owners retrofit to reduce their stormwater discharge and/or improve water quality as an economically feasible option. Blanket reductions will not incentivize measures needed for the City to meet the goals set by adopted planning documents. | These goals were developed from numerous public stakeholder committees over two decades. The resulting documents were approved/adopted by elected officials to shape City policy and ensure changes in development codes and fees for implementation. Unfortunately, lobbying efforts have compromised gains set forth by the original fees, so that the financing for flood control and water quality is not equitable to the average tax payer. |
| Issue | Current code or policy | Recommendation | Support |
| 5. Effective stormwater management requires action by all municipal, county, regional and state departments. | a. While LID has been discussed by the city since 2007, it was only adopted on a voluntary basis in the last UDC revisions of 2015. To date, there have been less than a handful of private and public projects that have incorporated some LID aspects. The FILO fee option is currently more economically feasible for private properties and the process is well defined to reduce review time therefore there is little incentive to utilize LID. There may also be conflicting interpretation regarding the implementation thus, increasing review times resulting in a disincentive to utilize the option. While the City’s Stormwater division is moving to include some water quality practices, it is still not the norm. | a. Currently, for every project that removes natural vegetation and increases impervious surfaces so that stormwater infiltration is reduced, there is a negative result to water and air quality that affects all San Antonians. This impact can be lessened by reversing the preference for FILO and requiring a minimum detention for the 25 yr event and incentivizing greater detention. To do so, UDC and fee structure changes are required to ensure that water quality consideration is the norm for every project. Every public (and private) project or policy should be reviewed not only for stormwater quantity, but for water and air quality and its impact to ecological resiliency. | At this point, only bold and strong direction given by City Council will move San Antonio in the direction needed for “climate action” resiliency and compliance with the City’s planning documents. As stated, citizens have spent hours and hours on stakeholder committees to develop planning documents and outline these goals. Most of these documents have been approved/adopted by elected officials. In some instances, such as the linear creek parks, recommendations have been implemented. Water quality goals have not been realized. A greater understanding of the congruence between this goal and climate resiliency adds weight to the importance of implementing needed changes. |
Appendix: SUMMARY OF RELEVANT SECTIONS OF CITY OF SAN ANTONIO’S PLANNING DOCUMENTS
LID ETC. IN SA PLANNING DOCUMENTS
SA Tomorrow (2016): Keep implementing the new voluntary LID policy
Master Plan Framework, SA 2020 Vision Statement (2011): Use LID
Master Plan (1997): Use LID in Edwards Aquifer recharge and drainage zones and in 100-year floodplains
2016: SA TOMORROW SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
Green Buildings & Infrastructure
OUTCOME: Water quality is improved due to the implementation of stormwater best management practices throughout the city, particularly within the San Antonio River watershed.
GB5:
STRATEGY: Create incentives and provide training and recognition opportunities for existing developments to manage stormwater onsite. DESCRIPTION: This strategy creates an incentive within the existing stormwater fee structure to encourage onsite management of stormwater to reduce the risks of flooding and runoff of contaminants into San Antonio’s waterways. This can be done through reductions in impervious surfaces, and through the installation of rain gardens and rain barrels.
GB6 (public top choice):
STRATEGY: Expand education, outreach, and technical assistance associated with the low impact development (LID) voluntary program to encourage significant onsite stormwater management for all new development and substantial retrofits and to encourage LID as the standard for San Antonio. DESCRIPTION: This strategy establishes a standard of development that reduces the environmental pollution that runs into San Antonio rivers, streams, and waterways through targeted education and outreach of the benefits of low impact development. Low Impact Development has multiple benefits including stormwater and flood management, reducing urban heat island impacts, and enhancing biodiversity.
OUTCOME: San Antonio’s water bodies meet or exceed all state and federal regulations.
NR1:
STRATEGY: Explore incentive, voluntary, and other implementation programs for Low Impact Development (LID) and the development of Conservation Subdivisions. DESCRIPTION: A voluntary Low Impact Development Program and an updated Conservation Subdivision Ordinance were adopted by the San Antonio City Council in February 2016, which promote the use of Low Impact Development and conservation development practices, as well as buffer zones around valuable water or natural resources, to reduce flooding, protect water quality, and ensure they are able to deliver on their necessary ecosystem functions. This strategy evaluates and identifies implementation opportunities.
Natural Resources
NR2:
STRATEGY: Through a representative stakeholder process, conduct a science-based assessment of the impact of increased impervious cover and determine if development standards are needed to address flooding, water quality, and urban heat islands. DESCRIPTION: Impervious surfaces can exacerbate flooding as water is not able to infiltrate. Pervious surfaces, such as grass, soil, or porous pavement allow water to infiltrate, helping reduce the impacts of flooding. Working with a broad group of stakeholders, determine whether it is necessary to update impervious cover standards outside of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone and, if needed, identify standards that would reduce flooding, improve water quality, and reduce urban heat islands.
OUTCOME: Water use in San Antonio is efficient and per capita consumption does not increase over time.
NR4 (public top choice):
STRATEGY: Assess and develop new pilot programs, and expand existing programs, to phase large commercial buildings off of potable water use for landscaping. DESCRIPTION: Expand and promote incentives for native plants and low-water use landscaping and other residential water conservation strategies.
Implement the City of San Antonio Potential Emissions Control Strategies Report.
These programs will include strategies and incentives for encouraging commercial buildings to use drought tolerant landscaping, rainwater harvesting, and recycled water from building systems for landscaping.
NR5:
STRATEGY: Expand and promote incentives for native plants and low-water use landscaping and other residential water conservation strategies. DESCRIPTION: Incentives will be designed to promote residential water conservation and enhance onsite stormwater management with native and other sustainable plants.
2011: SA 2020 VISION STATEMENT
Natural Resources & Environmental Sustainability
LAND: Development practices are focused on Smart Growth, Low Impact Development and Green Building.
2011 MASTER PLAN FRAMEWORK
Environmental Sustainability
Goal 5.C
Water quality and quantity of all underground water resources (including the Edwards Aquifer, Trinity Aquifer, Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, and all surface water resources) are protected.
Policies:
5.C.1 Low Impact Development (LID) practices for new development and redevelopment are encouraged.
1997 MASTER PLAN
Natural Resources Goals
Goal 1: Preserve the unique, rare and significant features of San Antonio’s natural environment.
Policy 1b: Develop and implement a management plan for land use activities which includes the best management practices, based on scientific study, that will protect the recharge and drainage zones of the Edwards Aquifer from pollution.
1. Aggressively implement the water quality recommendations included in the 1994 report, “The Edwards Aquifer: San Antonio Mandates for Water Quality Protection” and any subsequent revisions.
2. Support new development designs that incorporate street, drainage and lot layouts which reduce storm runoff, pollutant loading, and the need for landscape irrigation
3. Incorporate comprehensive watershed management considerations in revisions of land use and development standards.
4. Adopt urban drainage standards which reduce nonpoint source pollution and minimize downstream flooding.
Policy 1d: Encourage retention of the 100-year floodplains as natural drainage ways without permanent construction, unnecessary straightening, bank clearing or channeling.
2. Adopt strong stormwater management practices throughout the drainage area which include site specific measures such as:
