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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 08181987 - IO.2 TD; . ' BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FROM: INTERNAL OPERATIONS COMMITTEE Co��'l,�}}tra August 10, 1987 Costa DATE; C;o if"1F�/ Deferment of Drainage Collect and �/l�l �l� SUBJECT: Convey Ordinance Requirements SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS: 1 . Request the Director of Community Development to notify all applicants for developments, particularly minor subdivisions, of the applicable collect and convey requirements and the fact that any exceptions (e.g. , deferments) should be requested at the time the development plan is submitted. This notice should be on colored paper, or should otherwise readily call the attention of the applicant to the fact that the collect and convey requirements must be met and may be quite expensive. 2 . Concur with the recommendation of the Public Works Director that an ordinance be developed which would allow the Public Works Director, or his designee, under specified circumstances to accept as an alternative to immediate compliance with the collect and convey requirements that development rights for the property in question be dedicated to the County to serve as collateral for the County' s agreeing to defer the collect and convey improvements until such time as development is actually ready to take place. This would allow, for instance, subdivision of property on which building is . not expected to occur for some years without meeting the collect and convey requirements, but still requiring that these requirements be met or assured before actual development of the property could proceed. 3 . Direct County Counsel and the Public Works Director to prepare the, necessary ordinance and forward it to the Board for the Board' s further consideration. 4 . Remove this item as a referral to our Committee. BACKGROUND: On July 21, 1987, the Board referred to our Committee the issue of the Board' s current policy on enforcing collect and convey ordinance requirements to determine the feasibility of deferring enforcement of such requirements until building permits are CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR X RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE X APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE s : Nancy C. anden Tom Tor_lakson ACTION OF BOARD ON ugust18, zAi-PROVED AS RECOMMENDED Y OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS 1 HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE UNANIMOUS (ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. CC: County Administrator ATTESTEDei -/J- //OZ __ Community Development Director f -- p PHIL SATCHEL CLERK OF THE BOARD OF Public 14orks Director SUPERVISORS ND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR County Counsel BYCt ,DEPUTY M382/7-83 — Page 2 requested for the property in question. "The specific instance in question involved an individual who wished to subdivide her property in order to make a .parcel available to her granddaughter for future development. There are no immediate plans to develop the subdivided lot, but the current ordinance code provisions do not allow deferral of the collect and convey requirements except by requesting an exception at the point at which the development plan is filed with the County. Many individuals requesting subdivision of their property do not realize the potential cost implications of meeting the collect and convey requirements and, therefore, do not request an exception to the requirements even in those cases where they are aware that such an exception can be requested. In many cases, the individual is not even aware that such an exception is an available option. Once the development plan has been approved, the only method of avoiding the collect and convey requirements is to request the Board of Supervisors to waive the requirements, an option the Board has been encouraged not to exercise. The recommended actions point out to an individual early in the development process the potential cost of meeting the collect and convey requirements. Our recommendations also allow the individual ( the owner) to avoid meeting the collect and convey requirements immediately by dedicating development rights to the County, meaning that development cannot proceed and related building permits be obtained until the collect and convey requirements have been met. This appears to our Committee to be an acceptable compromise which insures that the necessary collect and convey requirements will be met before development occurs, but which do not place an unreasonable burden on an individual solely because the individual wishes to subdivide his or her property. We believe this is a reasonable solution to the problem because it is the development of land and not the subdivision of land that impacts storm runoff. PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT CONTRA COSTA COUNTY DATE: August 4, 1987 TO: Board of Supervisors Internal Operations Committee FROM: J. Michael Walford, Public Works Director SUBJECT: Collect and Convey, August 10, 1987, Age da The County Subdivision Ordinance (Section 914-2.006) requires all developments to "collect and convey" the drainage reaching their property to a natural watercourse or adequate man-made facility. Why are there so many appeals. of the "collect and convey" requirement? The answer is that many developments are premature and , as such , they cannot comply with the code requirement due to the cost of the needed drainage infrastructure. If developments occurred in a logical fashion , outward from areas of adequate drainage, they would be able to meet the code requirements. Our drainage problems in the older areas of the County can all be traced to failure to enforce the "collect and convey" provisions of the code in the past. As you are aware, it is extremely difficult to finance drainage infrastructure that has not been installed as a part of the development process. Several years ago the Board recognized this problem, and you adopted the attached Board policy which states that all exceptions to this code section are at the Boards' discretion. Since then, we have had few exceptions to the "collect and convey" requirement, and all of the exceptions have been warranted. Recently, we had two items appear before the Board on this matter. Both items involved a request for deferment of the code requirement until the building permit stage. Deferment of the requirement is not addressed within the code. We believe the solution to this problem is to amend the code to permit staff in special cases to accept the development rights for the property as collateral for deferment of the "collect and convey" improvements . This would insure that the property owner, or subsequent property owner, could not develop the property until such time as the drainage infrastructure is installed. The deeded development rights would be recorded on the property deed. JMW:MFK:md bosioc.t8 cc: P. Batchelor, County Administrator H. Bragdon, Director Community Development M. Mitchell , Deputy Public Works Director M. Kubicek, Deputy Public Works Director D. Jewett, Engineering Services