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CASE # CONSIDER WETLAND MITIGATION OPTIONS IN RAMSEY TOWN CENTER By Steven Jankowski, Assistant City Engineer Background: Ramsey Town Center LLC had an initial wetland mitigation plan approved in October of 2005 and implemented portions of this plan. The City has now taken over control of the Ramsey Town Center (RTC) development and is responsible for bringing the wetland into compliance with the approved plan or proposing an alternate plan. On October 27, 2009 the city authorized URS Inc. to prepare options for addressing the obligations of the Wetland Conservation Act (WCA) within RTC. The attached table presents seven possible courses of action the City might consider in this regard. Exhibit A illustrates the locations of three wetlands that were originally proposed to be created and also identifies the wetland impacts associated with RTC. At this time the Charter School Wetland and the NW Wetland have been graded to establish wetland hydrology, but still require vegetation management before they can be accepted as a mitigation wetland. The WNW wetland which is located south of Bunker Lake Boulevard was proposed to provide wetland credit through the enhancement of an existing wetland, but no effort has been made to date for this mitigation. Alternative A represents the status quo option of following the existing permit and mitigation plan. The areas allowed for development are most limited under this alternative. The development potential for Alternative B is similar to that of alternative A. The difference from Alternative A is that wetland credits are purchased for the impacts to the WNW wetland rather than through mitigation and enhancement proposed by the original plan. Alternate C extends the concept of purchasing wetland banking credits for all wetland impacts. This allows the areas of the school wetland mitigation and the NW wetland mitigation to be used for development purposes if desired. It, however, does not allow the WNW wetland to be available for development since this area is a delineated preexisting wetland. The remaining alternatives D through G all represent options which propose more wetland impacts than the current permit. Each option anticipates that new permits would be required which would include greater replacement ratios of 2.5 to 1.0 for impacted wetlands. In addition the sequencing requirements of avoidance, mitigation and replacement would need to be addressed. Alternates D through F all propose the filling of the WNW wetland so that it can now be used for development. It should be noted that Alternatives D through F would not allow development within the Preexisting Mitigation Wetland which is a separate wetland created to satisfy the impacts caused by the extension of Bunker Lake Blvd. The differences between these