Stormwater Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Thank you. All right, so I'm going to call this meeting to order if we're all ready. It's 8.30, so we'll call it. Oh. I'd like to say all Lexington County committees are being broadcast live on Lexington County Spectrum Channel 1302 and Lexington County's website meeting portal. The committee meetings filmed today will be available for viewing anytime on demand at our county website.

Thank you for being here today. The purpose of this meeting is to review the land available manual in regards to the proposed text and ultimately make a recommendation to Planning Commission. Council's planning retreat in March. Concerns were raised about the impacts of new development areas surrounding Lake Murray. So as part of that discussion, Council asked staff to explore better focused planning efforts and provide additional protections that may affect the lake. So in response, staff has drafted this proposal to provide additional protections for areas around Lake Murray with particular attention to watersheds and drainage areas that flow into the lake. So that's what we're going to discuss today. Changes where buffers were going to be increased by 40%. Curtains going to be required. Required for all those projects that were 25 acres or less too. Now ephemeral stream protections. Right now we've got intermittent and perennial. I'll let you all discuss what we got in red. Red text is the change text. Black text is already in the land development manual.

I'm hoping everyone has had an opportunity to read through those. I know, David, you had some comments, and maybe we could just start with whoever wanted to make some comments or open up. We'll just open up that discussion. Or actually, if I may, was I supposed to call out, is there any old business that we need to talk about? We didn't have anything on the agenda, but I don't know anything. Now we'll move into the discussion of this proposed ordinance 2616.

So yeah, as I said in an email, but I wanted to present it here was that I believe the overall direction of the ordinance will provide stronger protection for Lake Murray. I did have some comments that I don't know if they would be considered over the next quarter and brought back, but I can go over those comments. So, number one, I would propose to define the active disturbance areas and final stabilization, if it's not already. And if I've missed it in other portions, forgive me. But I added some language to define the disturbance. Also, prevent phasing from being used to bypass disturbance limits. Establish watershed mapping procedures, and forgive me if that's already in there. It might be. Add clear limits and approval criteria for the viewsheds. Add measurable standards for buffer mitigation and replacement plantings. Define what constitutes a development that immediately adjoins. Add specific protection measures for the ephemeral streams. Make enhanced PMP requirements measurable and objective. Add inspection and maintenance requirements for enhanced BMPs. Require written justification for approvals, waivers, and exceptions. Add long-term maintenance and enforcement provisions. clarify that the more protective requirements govern if conflict exists, and add severability language to protect the ordinance if a provision is challenged. So what's the best way to submit the specific red lines that you're considering?

If you have specific red lines, we just need to talk through what those are. We have your comments, but yeah, what specifically. Okay. specifically need to change we can talk about and at some point if we end the discussion I guess we move that I recommend if we all yeah we will need to find changes that you want us to take let's put a pin in your comments and get everyone else's comments and then we can sounds good thank you

If our recommendations are one that the staff needs to go back, rework those in, is that planned back to us, or is it kind of... Any adjustment to the writing will be after us. Right.

And they would tell us if they want to change anything in the text based off those recognitions.

With that, Alan, I see you've got some markups. I may just call you out and say, why don't you go next?

But first paragraph under Section 3.7. where it defines the Lake Murray Special Protection Area. It states that these design requirements shall specifically apply to stormwater runoff for all new development within 75 feet of the 360 line. I'm reading that. To me, that means everything under this section is limited to 75 foot of the 360 line. If the discharge is within. Correct. If it is discharging within 75 foot of 360 line. And then the additional text below goes into all of the watersheds listed, most of which, all of them, majority of those watersheds aren't within.

I read that as specifically within 75 feet you have those provisions, and then once you go into the watershed definition or talked about, and everything below that would be additional.

I would think there would need to be some level of break, so a 3.7.2 should start the section about the watershed so that it breaks it apart into two separate special sections instead of the one.

Is that the intention there, Matt? So what you're, we'll probably circle back to David's exact word changes, but you would recommend a 3.6.2 be right here at Lower Camping Creek. 3.7.2. 3.7.2?

Sorry. That way it's creating two separate special section areas.

You've got these specific. These specific design requirements are for the ones that discharge 75 feet and closer. And then 3.7.2 is talking about all the things you do if you're in any of these watersheds.

Because essentially, if you're within 75 foot of the lake, both will apply. But if you're right here...

3,000 feet away, but you're in that watershed, these will apply.

The water quality, erosion prevention, those two. But there is a lot of language in this new section that is Lake Murray specific. That's what this is intended to protect, but can't have one. If one is governed by 75 feet, the other should be separate. Um, I know we've had a lot of discussion on the maximum disturbance acreage. We still have a lot of heartburn when we cap it without any chance to go above and beyond, whether it's further design, more requirements, more buffering. Just for an example, the Amazon facility over in Casey, that's a million square foot building. That's 23 acres, plus or minus, under a roof. So to say a project can't disturb more than 25 at a time, you can't do a project that magnitude. Whether that's sending the project through us, additional planning, additional engineering requirements, just a hard cap is...

I would agree with that because when you limit it to 25 acres, it actually slows down the development process. You actually have more potential for more runoff. So there needs to be some level of additional BMPs or engineering involved to follow the standard 50-acre maximum disturbance.

You could have a size project, especially in these areas where you've got several creeks that kind of come together. You could have multiple discharge points in a project. I'm sorry. Where it would make more sense to have it per discharge point, where if you've got a ridge in the middle and you limit it to 25 acres, well, you're limiting what you can do to protect the backside of a project.

With that, well, I mean, we can circle to it, but I got you. No hard cap was one thing you're...

Like if we're going to require an additional increase in buffers, I'd be more supportive if we can say what that buffer is instead of saying it's 40% of something else to have to go hunt that down, especially if we're talking about a potential code rewrite in general down the road. Maybe that chapter's not the same chapter in a code rewrite scenario. Put the source all in one location for what this is. From a design standpoint, it makes it a lot easier to figure out what you're looking for.

So instead of saying something like water quality buffers from Chapter 7 will be increased 40%, say it's 120 feet.

Question. There's no question. Can I talk about averaging and what that means? If you need to change something later, you're not trying to find it in multiple places. Again, I almost feel like some of the turbidity curtain requirements in Lake Murray, those need to be moved up into the 7.1 category where it's in the Lake Murray specific within 75 feet. Because if you're not discharging within 75 feet, as this says, if you're immediately adjoining Lake Murray. So that should be in the other section of me. We're adding things into the new section that should be applied to the first section.

Unless this is... Unless this was intended for even if the discharge, the actual discharge points are sale. But the property adjoins Lake Murray. Because you still have lake frontage. So you wouldn't have to do these other things. But if you adjoin Lake Murray, there's curtains around wherever. Even if you're sheet flowing 100 feet. Is that kind of what it was going for? Okay. Look at me.

All right.

We're not doing it. That's right. And really that's all I've got. Not that we can't do that. I just, if that was the intention, and I don't necessarily disagree with that being out there as a requirement. That's all I've got, but I definitely would like to discuss some of the other comments. We're going to come back to David in just a minute, if that's okay.

Susan, do you have anything you wanted to?

Anybody else? I had like one comment that I got to kind of.

wrap my head around my own comment before i say it so my biggest thing was about just about the hard cap on the 25 acres of disturbance you know it's got to be on a per project basis there has to be some level of additional bonding or other requirements to be done to go up to that full 50 um just to have a blanket statement of 25 acres in here i don't think makes sense we have um i mean at some point when we if if we decide as a group that yeah we're going to make a

A motion, and these are the comments. We need to have that verbiage kind of settled. We can't be vague. We don't like this. We need a hard cap. We probably need to say, we recommend it says this, right? So keep thinking about that while we circle back to David in just a minute. My comments were about on the view sheds. just said Lake Murray view view sheds for Lake Murray may be considered provide a mitigation plan is offset any tree removal I don't know if we need to define that within this because it is awfully vague and subject if it's if it's not defined somewhere it it's hey we will make some view sheds well you got to do this well how do I know what I'm supposed to do because it doesn't say I would like something in there to be quantitative. Quantitative?

I'll think of some verbiage for that too. It's specific on mitigation efforts.

I did have some verbiage for the view sheds. Lay it on us. And it's just a point of start, you know, and then IF IT SEEMS UNREASONABLE, JUST... SO I WOULD SAY THE LAKE MURRAY VIEW SHED CORRIDOR MAY BE APPROVED Only by the county engineer or designee upon writing written findings that the corridor is the minimum necessary and will not cause a net reduction in buffer function. A viewshed corridor shall not exceed 30 feet in width or 20% of the parcel shoreline frontage, whichever is less. Clear cutting is prohibited. Selective pruning and removal of understory vegetation shall be minimized. And healthy native canopy trees shall be retained except where removal is specifically approved. So it's just a point of start.

That was a lot of words.

It is. One issue I have with that is giving the sole discretion to just the county engineer. I think it's kind of an arbitrary point to give all that decision to one sole person. So maybe they need to come in front of this committee or additional staff, but to have additional people weigh in on that decision I think goes a long way. Give them a way to argue before it goes...

Seems reasonable.

But there's no way to say one-to-one mitigation or be specific up front so you knew without even talking to the engineer and the engineer doesn't get it.

Right on the subject, Vance pretty much heads up the revegetation of buffers or telling us what exactly to do with the buffers in coordination with the LDM. He can give an example or two.

Vance Fomer, Environmental Coordinator. Typically what has been done before is use the landscape ordinance in their buffer section. And we work closely with the landscape administrator based on the ordinance that's already written in the landscape. And it gets revegetated based on what's already existing and using native plant material. And in the land development manual, there is a section that calls out what has to be done for buffer revegetation. But to your point, what we could do is take the buffer language from the landscape ordinance and specifically drop that in to the land development manual. Rather than two ordinances pointing at each other, we could actually have the specifics into the LDM, if that would be helpful. typically the way viewshed is handled is staff goes out and assesses what's currently on the ground with approval and we have a list of requirements where it's done by hand clearing there's no mechanical other than hand tools in the buffer we don't allow stump grinding down in the buffer Under two inches caliper vegetation can be removed with approval. And then if there's diseased invasives, those can be removed as well. And then based on the landscape standards, there's an ANSI standard 300 that governs all landscape and tree pruning, and that's set by the International Society of Arboriculture. Based on that, we allow lemming up to approximately 10 to 12 feet, depending on the species and the size of the tree. And then those buffers are monitored throughout the development. And then as far as revegetation, the Land Development Manual calls out already that there's a two-year revegetation requirement where those plant material has to be provided adequate water, mulching, and stabilization through that two-year inspection cycle. That's how it's currently being handled.

I've heard that at least it gives you what you can and can't do without, and it puts it back in.

We would still consult with the landscape administrator. That's their area of expertise. But we could drop some of those sections into the land development manual if you wish.

Y'all like that idea? Y'all on board with that? Makes it measurable. So that's the point.

Is there any conflict with Dominion Energy on this?

Below 360, it would, which you have to follow their rules. Something I admit to mention, protection of ephemeral streams. Those aren't protected streams. They're essentially erosion features. When it storms, it washes out. That's the only time it carries any water. So protection of those, how are we going to protect those when they're not protected?

Where is that? I apologize. Where is that? I'm looking at the right spot. I see ephemeral. Here we go. Sorry. It's right here.

Because they're not a general protected linear feature, Army Corps would not define them. Who's defining them?

Engineer record. Intermittent stream shown on NWI, and it was analyzed by a biologist. Point if it's just a defined ditch. Contours.

And kind of one of David's things is to add protections for the... Who's defying? I guess. Characteristics. We're looking at a site. We're just regrading the ditch out. It's not... Why are we protecting something where we got it? Right out by the goat.

So in your comment, are you saying that that entire sentence needs to get out of there or?

It either needs to come out or setting what, who's defining what the ephemeral stream is. You're sending the streams to the court to approve. They may not be looking at what's off of that, so it's not defined.

Yeah, it could be whoever the wetlands consultant is or the wetlands specific person that identifies features anyway. It could be based off their decision. Like I said before, if it was a dotted pink line on RGIS, well, those are strange, it's intermittent. And then it's like, no, it's not, it's ephemeral. So in that case... But if it's not shown anywhere on the maps, wetlands inventory, that might be a way that it will be defined. And so it captures everything.

So if it's dotted on the map, you need to justify that it's not by a wetland specialist scientist. Okay. Just define the guidance of who's... Who's deciding that it's an ephemeral stream? I don't think that would be, if they decided it's not even an ephemeral stream, then it just has to be protected. It's just an eroded side of an embankment. It'd be better to fix it than it would be to protect it.

So we're just looking to add in measures to ensure, okay, is it ephemeral or is it ephemeral? I've called it ephemeral for all of our lives. Tomato, tomato. All right, whatever. To ensure those streams are protected, femoral streams in parentheses as defined by wetlands consultant or something like that, and then everything else stays? Correct. And you're happy? Yeah. Would everyone else be happy with that?

Yeah, I suggested engineer record.

Engineers don't do that. I'm going to turn it over to the wetlands consultant.

Yeah, that's where you get his information anyway, so I'm fine with that.

I just don't want to say if it's a dotted pink line on a map that got put together 50 years ago.

All right, Dave. I think the other thing was the definition of adjoining. Adjoining, what is the definition and where do we go for that? I think the word has a definition.

It means it's touching. What's touching?

This sounds like touching. I could say my words and maybe you guys can... Critique it but so I would say for this requirement a development immediately adjoins Lake Murray when the development parcel shares a boundary with the Dominion project boundary line or when land disturbance occurs within 200 feet of the 360 and drains through a direct or constructed hydraulic connection to Lake Murray and

That's what you want. I can put that in the recommendation. I was just seeing what your thoughts are. I mean, to me, adjoining kind of defines what it is, but if we need a bunch of extra words.

Adjoining meaning the property literally touches the land.

Literally adjoins it. I mean, your, in my opinion, your definition Is the same, but I don't know that we need all those words to say the same thing.

Unless there's some differentiation, I'm just not. We're saying within 200 foot of Lake Murray is defining adjoining. A project that abuts it and has land disturbance within 200 feet. Well, the sentence of turbidity curtains shall be required for any development which immediately adjoins Lake Murray weep. Lying it there too, so even though you don't own lake frontage, you've got to go in the lake and add turbidity curtains.

Do that if you don't have any frontage, you don't have any place to do that.

Right. So the intent of adjoining is that the property literally touches the lake? You're owning lakefront.

Should we set, like, a minimum threshold of a distance of adjoinment? You know, if a parcel boundary is just a corner touching the... It's going to have a weird-looking turbidity curve. Exactly. So, I mean, should we say a minimum of a 50-foot of a shared property line or 100-foot? Some sort of... And that would probably give you a better definition of adjoining.

Yeah, I'm just thinking... I mean, was there any thought on something like that where... I mean, I don't know how many projects end up doing this. We're, like Grayson said, you know, we're at... It adjoins the lake. We've got three foot of frontage. How do we handle to pretty curtains that kind of situation? You go out and come back and be like, it wouldn't... Pretty curtain doesn't do us any good. I don't think I can just willy-nilly go put it in the code and touch this guy's property and this guy's property.

So if you had a property that was 10 feet off the lake, didn't adjoin per what we're talking about adjoining being, but yet it has a hydraulic conduit to the lake, you don't need turbidity curtains there?

You've got no... Grounds or ability to put a pretty curtain in you can't box somebody else in Putting up a wall you're blocking someone else's access to their lake water that they have I Believe in my It wouldn't be able to use their dock whatever they wouldn't be able to use your lakefront to access the lake They would be I'm thinking of properties that are just off the lake and

access to it. You don't own it. I'm talking about within the property. Turbidity curtain. If you've got, say, a drainage swale that's within the property, but yet you're not adjoining, are you not going to... There are BMPs to use, but the turbidity curtain would not be the right BMP. Got a swale that's Heading off your property through an area that's not your property to the lake?

Right, but a swale to me means that there's water moving through that. A turbidity curtain is more for standing water. Like it's more, it's floating in the lake. It has no current essentially flowing through it. So... Any of the turbidity would have to go down low enough and go under the curtain. And then it's so close to the bottom of the lake, the idea is it just settles out there. So if you've got a swale or a creek or a channel that's flowing water, and if it's not flowing, you're below the 360. But apply, then you'd have lake frontage. I don't.

Yeah, I'll concede then.

Well, I guess, does the LDM still stand true? Say that again? Does the LDM still stand true? We've got turbidity curtains shall be deployed within the joining and receiving bodies of water where feasible to further protect receiving areas of discoloration and turbid water. I mean, do we go as far as, you know, below the 360 is not usually properly owned. You've got a conveyance dumping into a stream or creek of somebody else's. Then you get to the old Project Boundary line. After that line, it becomes Dominion's.

But to your... Tracking. I mean, you can't put turbidity curtains in.

No, no, no, no. And you can't block somebody's access to their dog.

It would depend what kind of creek it is. If it's a protected creek, you're going to go in and be setting... prop berm in a wetland ditch. You'd have to do something along the upper bank, along the top of the bank to protect that stream. So it wouldn't be a curtain.

Which is already in the LDM. Correct.

That's what I'm saying. So additional BMPs, that's not forcing turbidity curtains. That just means you've got to do double row silt fence.

My Zoom function doesn't work. It's okay.

Thank you.

I have my contacts in, I promise. All right. To leave a joins as it is. Okay, just leave it as it is. Yes, for now. Yes.

Okay. For the justification and approval, do we have that adequately determined as far as approval standard so I proposed that any approval waiver equivalency determination a viewshed allowance buffer mitigation plan or alternative BMP authorized by the section shall be made in writing by the county engineer or designee and shall include findings addressing the applicable measure measurable criteria approval shall not be based solely on the professional judgment of the applicants engineer record we already have protections for that Which of your comments is this stemming from? For approval, making sure that we've got number 10, require written justification for approvals, waivers, and exceptions. We still have, we have a good process for these approvals.

When it comes in question on a certain set of plans, the proposal was usually shown, and if it's shown to be, or the request comes in to ask of, you know, that we need to fill a review shed for a house over, what do you call it? First house. Model home, then usually folks can come consult with us, and we'll find a happy medium, as Vance talked about, based off the landscape ordinance. Based off of? The approval isn't, I guess, standardized such as that, but it's, I won't say negotiated, but it's talked about. Case-by-case basis.

Outside of what the LDM says? Yeah. Which is in the LDM, the exceptions, which forces it to either go back through us for that kind of variance, which is in the LDM currently.

Okay. Yeah. As I said, starting off, some of these might already have been there, but I didn't read everything. Okay. And then as far as making it quantifiable, as Vance said, WE'LL USE THE LANDSCAPE ORDINANCE LANGUAGE ON WHEN IT IS IN RELATION TO BUSHEDS AND BUFFERS.

I'VE GOT THAT ONE NOTED DOWN. I DON'T HAVE THE EXACT LANGUAGE, BUT I HAVE THAT ONE NOTED. I'LL TALK ABOUT THE LANGUAGE HERE IN A MINUTE.

I THINK MOST OF MY OTHER COMMENTS HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED.

good down there good anyone else oh wow I got really loud I'm gonna read out what the the ones I have written down and then we can kind of muscle through them and add because I may have I may have missed one so here here the here's the four topics of of changes recommendations we're gonna we're thinking of sending adding a 3.7.2 at the beginning of the watershed discussion view sheds that they'd refer to the landscape ordinance that's not the language we need I just that's the topic disturbance acreage the cap would I don't know what the language needs to be there but we're going to talk about that and ephemeral stream where it mentions the ephemeral stream, we're going to have some language that says as defined by wetland scientists. I feel like I missed one. I had another dot right there. Did the dictate what 40% buffer increase means? Yes, that we were going to ask that the buffer widths be specifically stated. That is, where is that? Right. It's in 3.7.2-1. Or our proposed 3.7.2-1 buffer widths clearly dated. What else you got in your notes there, Matt? So I've at least got the topics right. Okay. We need to make an attempt at the language for each of these, and then we can make a motion. First one's easy. That one's good, yes. The first one will be we recommend that we add 3.7.2 at the watershed section. That's easy. Or the view sheds. I apologize. That, provided mitigation plan approved. Did we...

There's a section of the landscape ordinance that we can just cite.

You mentioned maybe inserting it, or would you... just refer to the landscape ordinance.

We can do either. I feel like y'all were saying that you wanted the language incorporated from the landscape and dropped in.

I think my perspective was if it's something as simple as setting a buffer width, yes, have it here. Don't make me go hunt that. But if it's going, that code is defined over there, much larger than just saying it's 50 foot. I think that lives and breathes in the landscape code.

Because one's a number that's easily placed here. Right. The other is this much document that doesn't need to be replicated. Correct. I don't disagree with that. Yeah. So we could refer to it. Instead of this, what I'm thinking is instead of the view sheds for Lake Murray may be considered provided blah, blah, blah, we could have something view sheds for Lake Murray may be considered provided.

In alignment with the landscape. Correct.

In alignment with the landscape code. Is that okay? Something like that? Does that make sense? You know what the number is.

So one question about the view sheds, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but the intent of that is to go be able to see the lake and access the lake, right? But a lot of the landscape ordinance is about revegetating the buffer with high density of plants. So at a certain point, they're going to counteract each other. You're going to cut a view shed, but then if I have to replant it to the new ordinance, the buffer ordinance is very restrictive on the type of plants and the density of plants. So essentially you're cutting down a view shed just to replant I do fear that just referencing the landscaping code is going to be going in circles.

Well, that's why we're talking about it. Yeah, I don't want to limb everything up so I can see through it. and cut down dead vegetation or whatever, or possibly remove a couple of trees to have to put more trees back that are going to grow up and block that view. That totally makes sense. That complicates it a little bit, though.

Something in the landscape code, I know it does for being under power lines. You've got to have minor trees, lower canopy trees under power lines. Is there something... In there for a viewshed type application where it shrubs and under, it doesn't reestablish a new higher view obstruction.

I think what would happen is if there was an encroachment into the buffer, have a higher density planting, if the developer came to the county and said, I would like to create a viewshed, That's where you would have more of your canopy and your understory trees with the less of the shrubs. Typically, the canopy is going to be higher. You can see down through that. Now, if someone were to encroach into a water quality buffer, go outside the limits of disturbance, your denser vegetation. But we wouldn't use the understory for the view blockage. We would do canopy.

Even the canopy trees will take 10 years to reach a height that they're actually going to be canopy trees. That's the block of view you were trying to get in the first place. Is there any sort of language we could come up with, maybe like a buffer averaging? So let's say it's a 100-foot long buffer just to make the numbers easy. I'm going to do a 30-foot view shed. But in these other areas, that buffer maybe goes up to 125 feet in width. They'll give you access to the lake, give you clarity, give you view of the lake, but still adhering to an additional buffer requirement. So, I mean, when we're designing neighborhoods and you have a buffer for wetlands, you can average that buffer down in certain areas and increase it in other areas. So kind of following that similar process of trimming down the buffer in the area that you want to have the view shed in the access and increasing it in other areas along the lake.

I would suspect that you'd want to have a subdivision or any development with lake frontage. I don't I don't want to increase buffer anywhere along the lake. I want to be able to see the lake. That's the whole reason we're there is to see the lake. So to be able to clean up what's there so you can see mostly through it is the objective without, to your point, without replanting things that just block what we just cleared up. I was thinking that we had that ability within not replanting things. bunch of view blockage but where do you find that balance between i'm just going to clear out all the trees which i mean dominion already has some control over that because they're gonna like what was the thing that you can't you can't the button bushes or whatever you can't take them out anyway um i don't know what that length that language or what could be a fair compromise here

I would say is the goal, okay, let's say we have a property that you've got housing in a certain section and you've got other areas that wouldn't be appropriate for the housing. Those areas you would end up leaving a lot of the buffer. But then you might have clear-cut where there's all the houses. Is there a way that it could be stated so that we still have sections of view for the property so that it's not just, well, we're just going to use this as a buffer. It's land that we couldn't have used anyway for housing, but it might take away from the overall water quality of Lake Murray. It would be better to have integral vegetation rather than clear and then just separate areas that aren't as usable, qualifying for the buffer area. Does that make sense?

I don't know how to write that. Yeah, I guess my biggest hang-up on it right now is if we're going to reference the landscape ordinance, again, whatever you take down, whether it's usable or unusable, you've got to replant. It's not really a view shed. It's just, you're like, it'd be like a standard buffer. Contractors got the view while they were constructing it.

Homeowner doesn't.

Is that what it says?

It's a water quality buffer. It protects water quality. And you do that by stopping erosion with root systems and having no chemicals or equipment down in the buffer. That's what, that's how you protect water quality. Happened with...

And again, every property is different. If you've got a slope going up away from the shoreline, a bed that is 10 foot and under may not be applicable to your house because you're sitting up on a hill. So not every property is going to benefit by cutting out the understory. It's the next mid-zone that they would be interested in. They don't get the benefit of that here. But is there something that we can replant? grasses the Low shrubs the or foot and under that House that could be done of understory trees I Think by allowing the landscape administrator to have that flexibility I Would say that that would be beneficial I

Start to try to define every square foot and what is going to happen in that buffer. Now you have to take into consideration into your table. Now you have to define topography and slope. And by giving the landscape administrator the flexibility, we've seen it work well. The standard revegetation is more of when you have, I mean, let's just call it what it is, a penalty. Contractor goes outside the limits of disturbance, whether they read the plans or not. That's standard revegetation. But the landscape administrator, even that scenario, still has the flexibility to use the plant material that's appropriate for the site conditions. to your point where you're talking about getting a view from a second story floor master. In that case, you would want the native grasses and the understory that would top out at 12 feet to be your revegetation. And by giving the landscape administrator that flexibility, I think that's what you want.

What's written now gives landscaper flexibility without any other than the width asking for the width to be specific or as the refer to landscape ordinance we don't need we wouldn't necessarily if if we're going along train of thought um read the next sentence where it says this shall include but unlimited can that a include We can ask for anything, doesn't it?

I'm trying to... The first sentence, two sentences there talk about one thing, and then view sheds are in that paragraph. It's all kind of lumped together. Are we saying view sheds are part of water quality, or should there be a two there? That's part of water quality. Or retaining something. Should viewshed be its own number? Should it be two or move below two and be three? Or should it be lumped into the water quality? Is it saying when there are viewsheds being used, you must follow these water quality requirements? I don't know. I'm sorry. Now I'm rereading this after discussion. I'm confused. Now you're just confusing me. Stop it.

Well, we did state before that when I talked about how they were approved, how the viewsheds were approved, I had suggested county engineer and everyone else kind of wanted to have additional decision makers. So what are we saying here? Is the viewshed just one person's decision or not?

Probably. Probably need to specifically say landscape administrator in here, but it would go to the landscape administrator if I'm hearing Vance correctly.

Or his designee. So the LDM is written in a way that can be approved by the county engineer, public works, or their designees. So in that way, you encompass all the LDM and all the public works and the community development staff when you're That protects if somebody's out on leave. I review something, Robbie stamps it. Reference one person, I think that takes away the flexibility for staff. But you can still reference an ordinance for guidance.

It would be standard their decision or their appointee or designee.

So then, is there a recommendation to change any of the language in this little bit of the view sheds, or is there not a recommendation? After circling back through it a few times. At one point, we wanted it to reference the landscape ordinance, but now it kind of already has talking about Grayson's point that a site-by-site case have discussions on what kind of plantings actually need to go back in there that's sort of yeah I think you need to have detailed in a view shed area here's the types of plantings and the density requirements for that area so you would you would want that spelled out in here and not Not discretion at. Because it's a different buffer. As you submit. Right. Because even if I – You would have to submit with justification on why you want these sort of plants here.

Correct. Like let's say I'm doing a master plan and this is where my amenity center is going. Here's where I want to have the nice green space and have people – The view corridor. Have access and have view. Here's my mitigation plan. Yeah, it should be – I'm clearing – 50-foot-wide view shed, and here's the mitigation that I'm required, here's the trees I'm removing, and here's my replanting schedule, but not force them to actually go replant that 50-foot view corridor with understory or canopy trees, whether it's native grasses, I think that would satisfy it. That would prevent erosion. That would prevent – it wouldn't be raw dirt. You know, just come up with a plan on a per-project basis.

So does languages here cover that, or do you want additional language? Do you want to recommend additional language? Not that the Planning Commission is going to listen. You don't necessarily follow what we say, but if there's additional language, I'd like to hear it so that way I can just write it down right here, and then we can...

I mean, I guess it does take... UCI may be considered, provided a mitigation plan is submitted and approved.

Still leaves a lot up to, like, as the one that wants to do it, I really don't know what I have to do. This doesn't tell me what I have to do to get approval. So it's not very measurable. Correct. And that's the part that bothers me. I just don't know how to make it measurable in this document because everything's so different every time. Right. can be so different every time. For the amenity center, ones for lots five through six, or five through ten, those are completely different situations, and depending on top of it, it's completely different. I don't know that you can spell it out.

Again, should view sheds be on their own point, and then we say a view shed around Lake Murray should be 50 foot in width, and then you can go That's kind of going back to where I was talking about doing a buffer averaging. You're able to go down to a reduced width if you have a replanting schedule of XYZ, you know, and come up with some sort of measurable quantitative value for that. I don't think we're going to get it in this meeting, unfortunately.

Well, maybe our recommendation could be looser than that. As far as not being specific on the language, I just recommend to the Planning Commission that this... I'm not going to say we're not smart enough, but it's more complicated than just a couple of sentences from us to digest. And yeah, after circling through this a couple times, I think it can be its own...

I guess that would be the recommendation to make it its own section with measurable requirements. Yeah.

Everyone else is kind of on board with that? Yeah. Measurable. Measurable what? I'm sorry. You said it right.

Thank you. Because if it's measurable, then it doesn't put as much onus on the approver. If it's less measurable, we might want to have it looked at by more than one person, so one person's not.

It slows things out. And as a developer, I don't know what I'm, without going through that approval process and spending the money to have everyone, I don't know what I'm going to have to do. I don't have any clue. Okay. Language on the disturbance acreage.

My opinion on that is I don't know why we would do anything different than what our previous revision was on the acreage stuff. Honestly, just taking those first two sentences out, you got your 25 acres, 25 to 50.

We've already done the brain surgery on what it takes to get – what you have to do to get above the acreage. Why is it even brought back up?

I was taking those two out, in my opinion, and it's already referenced in the LDM on the last revision, so – I mean, you've got your 0 to 25, 25 to 50, and anything above that goes to here, council, whatever it is, but yeah.

Is there an issue with the second sentence, though, with the phasing? What is the particular issue with the phasing plan?

Are we talking about water quality? That's also covered in the LDM on when you want to go. however you want to disturb your site that's already covered. So I don't disagree that this is, I mean, I think they were trying to be more restrictive, but I don't, there's, I don't agree with that should be there. Have additional BMPs you have to do to justify anything above that anyway.

I mean, agreed, because Batesburg Leesville over here does another industrial park because that watershed goes that far. You're saying you can't do over 25 acres that far from the lake looking at the watershed.

That doesn't make sense. I don't agree. Right. I'm agreeing with you saying that I don't agree with that. Yeah. So first two sentences, underwater quality, we recommend they were just removed.

Yeah. Or... Is this something about analysis points or just drainage points based off that or just get rid of it?

If we're taking that out and we go back to the language that we've already done with the previous changes, I think it takes care of that. But to say it's 25 acres of disturbance, well, if I'm discharging this way and then I've got a large enough site where I'm around the end of the cove and I've got a discharge over there that has nothing to do with that discharge different different watersheds that slide separately so a 25 acres disturbance to a discharge point now if you've got a wide open frontage your whole frontage may be one discharge but again if you get multiple creeks that are leaving a several hundred acre site It would apply, protect that discharge point, protect that discharge point, protect that discharge point. But I still think if we strike those two sentences, I think there's enough leeway in what we've got already in the revisions. The developer can go through that process to make that work.

I don't see recreating the will. Strike those two sentences. So our recommendation... Our recommendation on that would be that after water quality, the first two sentences are removed because, and we can say because, not saying we're right, because land disturbance limits have already been discussed and reviewed ad nauseum. We won't say nauseum. In other sections of the LDM. Our recommendation could say something like that, correct? Emerald streams as defined by wetland scientists. We're going to change on that part down there. You got to go? Yep. We'll have one, two, three, four, five. We're almost there. We're almost there. And that the buffer whips were clearly stated. That's easy enough. Okay, so now... Now I've got to figure out how to get that into a motion, right? That's going to be fun. That's the scary part. Everyone's going to look at me. What an idiot. If you want me to say, I'll go through what I think we've got, and then someone can say anything. I moved or something to that effect. Okay, so what our recommendation to the Planning Commission on these changes would be I have five points. Number one, that we would like to add 3.7.2 at the beginning of the watershed section. Under the water quality section of that same section, section, sorry, we would like view sheds, the view sheds portion to be made its own section and to work through some measurable requirements for getting the view shed allowance. On the disturbed acreage, we would, right after water quality in the same section we were just talking about, like to we would recommend removing the first two sentences because the land development manual already has the measurable disturbance the maximum disturbance limits and the exceptions to it further down the page we have where it mentions ephemeral streams we'd like to in parentheses behind that put as defined by wetland scientist And the last recommendation is that our buffer widths are clearly, the actual widths are clearly stated in this document. Can I get a motion on those recommendations?

Second. All right.

Any further discussion on those?

No.

All right. So we'll have a vote. Everyone says yes. Did we say aye? I forgot what we do on this one. We'll just have a vote. Just say aye if you agree. Aye. Aye. Aye. That was everyone, so we don't have any nays.

anonymously approved. So the whole purpose of this was to make sure we have special protections on the Lake Murray watersheds. Do you feel like we've accomplished that?

Yeah. So then, were there any other comments from staff? That next meeting date, we meet as needed, so... Matt will let us know, and I'll try to give us some heads up, like we did last time. I think that worked out well. We had a good showing. Appreciate everyone being here. If I can get a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. We're adjourned. Thank you.