Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/01/2011 - Work Session

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3. Follow up on erosion control what are the laws and regulations? Concerns: (A) Are we sure that the $100 administrative fee and the $1,500 erosion control escrow are justified? (B) Is there a state law? A. The $100 administrative fee covers the cost of finance department to administer the erosion control escrow. The $1,500 escrow is used as leverage by the City of Ramsey to encourage builders/property owners to abide by erosion control standards. Without the escrow, the city reserves no means to enforce compliance to erosion control standards. These funds are only used to correct a deficiency if the builder/property owner refuses to take action on their own following notification. B. There are laws that the City of Ramsey is responsible to abide by (unfunded mandates) in regards to surface water discharge (and thus erosion control) under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) enforced by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The City of Ramsey is issued a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit from these agencies to discharge storm water into our rivers and lakes. In order to comply with standards set by these agencies (and adopted by Council), the City of Ramsey must prevent run off from construction sites (i.e. a new single family home) by means of erosion control practices. The City of Ramsey is liable for non-compliance with these regulations as the local enforcement agency. Therefore, not enforcing these regulations may result in the City of Ramsey losing their MS4 permit and possibly incurring fines/ charges/ administrative penalties. The MPCA does not charge anything for the City's MS4 permit, however, it is anticipated that this will change in the near future with an estimated fee of approximately $1,000. Finally, there is also a $400 fee for a NPDES permit on every individual project that disturbs more than one acre (road construction, development, etc.), which goes directly to the state. Staff input: Staff believes that $100 administrative fee could be absorbed in the overall building permit fee (base building permit fee). Doing so could result in use of general funds, should the expenditures exceed what is collected (plan review, inspections, enforcement, overhead, etc.). Staff believes that it is important to keep an erosion escrow (and the encompassing ordinance), as it makes it the responsibility of the individual performing the work to handle their own erosion control requirements instead of making the responsibility of all that live within the City.