Minutes - Public Works Committee - 09/19/2000

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Case #5: Update of Mining and Grading Ordinance City Engineer Olson stated that in 1999, the City had some difficulty enforcing the removal of a berm along C.R. #116. Residents wanted to extend their lawns by the removal of soil that was placed for the purposes of a berm. Also within the last few years there has been some issues raised by residents regarding their yards to redirect the flow of storm water runoff. The City Council directed staff to review the current policy regarding the removal or addition of soil to see whether or not the mining and grading ordinance should be reconsidered. The current portion of Chapter 9 in the City code that deals with these issues states that a conditional use permit shall be applied for all grading, mining, and filling operations with the following exceptions: · No additional permit shall be required if the grading, mining, and filling operations are being done as a part of a subdivision plat, site plan, or planned unit development. No permit shall be required if the grading, mining, and filling operations are being done by a public agency and is incidental to construction or maintenance of streets or utilities. · No permit shall be required for grading of individual lots by less than 3 feet in depth, filling of less than two feet at any point and which does not interfere with surface drainage in the area. · No permit shall be required for grading, mining, and filling operations that require removal of less than 400 cubic yards of earth material. City Engineer Olson stated that City staff has solicited responses from 15 other communities throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Staff has received responses from 7 communities of which 3 did not have restrictions or ordinances in place. Three of the remaining communities are similar to the City of Ramsey in that they differentiate between commercial grading and residential operations and require a permit if export of materials exceed 100 - 1000 cubic yards of material. The last ordinance that staff received, submitted from the City of Savage, has a three tier approach. No permit is required for any excavation that would export soils less than 25 cubic yards. A minor excavation permit is required for export of soils greater than 25 cubic yards and less than 2000 cubic yards. This permit requires the filing of an application, supplied by the City, and the supply of a legal description of the property and copy of a section map showing the proposed grading and export plan. Any operations that would require the export of soils greater than 2000 cubic yards would qualify as a commercial operation and would require a special use permit. One of the reasons that other communities do not have any ordinances that control residential grading projects is that those operations are already controlled to a point. Any operation that alters the drainage patterns in an area that creates damage to adjoining property would be the responsibility of the property owner that has that work done. The City of Ramsey also addresses that issue in the current policy as represented by the third exception as stated above. Councilmember Hendriksen stated that the only reason the ordinance was adopted is because sugar sand is very valuable and they had people that were mining the sand and selling it for profit and then abandoning the project. He stated that he wants to go after the real issue and if they Public Works Committee/September 19, 2000 Page 11 of 13