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KEEP
ON THE GRASS Cars now park on the grass at
the Future of Flight facility near the Boeing
plant in Everett. This GrassPave parking
lot is a pervious pavement system that helps
prevent runoff from stormwater.
/ Bill Lewallen,
Snohomish County |
Many local building codes don’t allow for
certain low impact development (LID) practices that
help decrease stormwater runoff, such as narrower
roads and bioretention swales. Often, if a developer
wants to use these proven alternative approaches
to stormwater management, he or she must go through
a time-consuming and costly process of applying for
exceptions.
Last year, the Action Team made it possible for
busy, budget-strapped local governments to make room
for LID in their regulations.
Free help for busy staff
Through a competitive process, the Action
Team selected 11 local governments eager to get free
help making their regulations more LID-friendly.
The Action Team also chose the Tacoma engineering
firm AHBL, Inc., through a competitive process to
provide that technical assistance. AHBL suggested
recommendations to city and county staff for regulations
dealing with stormwater management, subdivisions,
planned unit developments, parking, roads, commercial
and industrial development, and incentives to developers.
Breaking new ground
“I think this is one of the biggest
types of projects in the nation,” said Bruce
Wulkan, the Action Team’s Stormwater
Program Manager. “No one else that I know of
has attempted to work with 11 local governments simultaneously
to revise regulatory language so local managers and
elected officials can consider adopting LID.”
The $121,000 in funding for this technical assistance
project came from Washington Department of Ecology’s
Direct Implementation Fund and from U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and State Water Quality Account
funds administered by the Action Team.
The cities involved in the 2005 Low Impact Development
Local Regulation Assistance Project are Bellingham
, Issaquah, Marysville, Poulsbo and Redmond . Counties
are Clallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, Snohomish, Thurston
and Whatcom. Materials developed from these projects
will be available this spring at www.psat.wa.gov/LID.
This spring the Action Team will select another engineering
firm and\ six local governments to participate in
a second round of technical assistance.
>>> Return
to Stormwater/LID |
