Chevy Chase’s residents are frustrated by the costs and annoyances created by the town’s water drainage ordinance.
In an effort to assist residents, the town’s environment committee met Thursday night to evaluate the ordinance and develop recommendations that will help clarify certain rules.
According to the committee, there are several issues surrounding the ordinance. Among these issues are applicability of county requirements, permeable surfaces as infiltration devices, coordination of Water Plan with Tree Protection Plan, and the Maintenance agreement property owners have had difficulty with.
In terms of Chevy Chase’s requirements, the town’s ordinance calls for water drainage plans to conform to specifications found in the design manual of the state’s Department of Environment.
This has caused some controversy in town about whether the State or County rules are appropriate for small residential lots. To the townspeople, the rules are often applied to commercial lots or large residential developments.
According to Rick Brush, Director of Montgomery County Permitting Services, the County specifications adhere closely to the State’s. Mr. Brush told the committee that state and county rules are applicable to small residential lots as well as larger lots.
He added that the State recently revised the manual and believes it contains additional provisions applicable to the small lots making it more relevant.
The environment committee is recommending the town to adhere to State specifications. If a property owner and/or the town engineer think the State requirement isn’t fitting for the property, the town engineer would be encouraged to discuss with the Maryland Department of Environment to come up with a better solution.
For instance, Chevy Chase is known to be hilly in some places and some of its soil doesn’t easily accept water. Maryland doesn’t allow water infiltration systems on slopes greater than 15% unless the system does not alter the slope in any way. To the committee, this state rule, if applied, would protect residents from being burdened by the lots of nearby neighbors.
One town resident the committee recently interviewed said it wasn’t fair when water from several developed lots drain into her backyard. It doesn’t make it easier when some residents have several lots. Her unfortunate experiences occurred before the ordinance became effective.
Developer Patrick Keating told the committee that when soil on a lot accepts water, water retention equipment and installation costs are very expensive, typically costing around $12,000 and $15,000. In an area as rocky as Chevy Chase, Mr. Keating indicated the cost possibly being significantly more. He told the Town Council to be aware that by adopting the ordinance, development projects could be very expensive or even impossible.
What about Permeable surfaces? Maybe they could reduce expenses by treating them as infiltration devices.
According to the environment committee, permeable surfaces frankly wouldn’t work. Permeable surfaces can only absorb a minimal amount of water runoff. Unless the permeable driveway or surface is repeatedly maintained properly, it could become impermeable due to objects like leaves.
“It would exacerbate flooding in the future,” said Joan Shorett, an environment committee member. “Also, our Town engineer said he doesn’t know any way he can test the permeability of a driveway.”
Thus, with the Town engineer unable to evaluate whether an owner properly maintains a surface and a general assumption that owners won’t maintain the surfaces, the committee decided to discourage the use of these surfaces.
Then arrived the issue of the coordination of two plans. The problem had to do with whether infiltration devices should be placed within the drip line of a canopy tree.
Don MacGlashan, longtime resident of Chevy Chase, noted that houses often are approved before either the water issue or tree issue is brought up. He added that the houses should all be conditioned.
The committee ended up stating that the issue could be addressed as part of a property owner’s tree protection plan related to any new development. The committee encourages residents to get the Town engineer and Town arborist together in these situations.
Lastly, some residents have had difficulty in getting mortgage lenders to sign the consent of Trustees/Lender included in the Water Drainage Plan Inspection and Maintenance Agreement. According to the agreement, a property owner must get a mortgage lender to sign consent to that the lender is responsible for maintaining the water retention system in case there is a foreclosure.
One property owner building a new house told the committee that he had to pay several thousand dollars in unnecessary closing costs because he couldn’t get a hold of his original lender. The money was for refinancing his existing mortgage with a different lender.
Town attorney David Podolsky suggested simply eliminating the consent of Trustees/Lender section from the Agreement. Lenders that foreclose wouldn’t need to maintain the retention system and new owners would be obligated to do so under the maintenance agreement.
The environment agreed with Podolsky stating that because most properties containing water retention systems would be highly valued, lenders would likely try to maintain the systems to make the homes attractive to potential buyers.
Furthermore, the risk of a lender not being able to sell in a reasonable time frame is outweighed by the difficulty Town residents have had in obtaining lenders’ consent.
The environment committee plans to continue reviewing the water ordinance and hold its next meeting on April 2nd.
In other action, the committee:
· Reminded members that the Town Council will hold a public hearing on the noise control initiative on March 11th. It has asked the Council to establish noise control as a priority and to work with residents and contractors to ensure that the County’s residential noise standards are the norm in the town.
· Gave informal approval to a proposal by Common Cents Solar to begin solar energy projects that can benefit the community. Common Cents Solar wants to minimize costs by providing wholesale purchasing and encouraging residents to invest in clean renewable energy production in tax-deductible ways.
Sources:
Jean Shorett
Don MacGlashan
Vicky Taplan, Chair - 301-215-9406
No comments:
Post a Comment