The Unified Development Code adopted and overhauled by the Boerne City Council and staff last year has lived up to the council’s claim of being a “living, breathing” document.
Last week, council members amended requirements in the new UDC to lessen the drainage study requirements for several homeowners looking to add impervious cover.
Development Services Director Jeff Carroll said this change was made because the intent of the tiered system of drainage study requirements – ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 4 – was to ensure larger projects had larger studies and vice versa. However, he said city staff saw a majority of projects falling under the Tier 3 drainage study requirements, which could run a homeowner upwards of $5,000.
“The big issue that we’ve seen is we actually get a lot of calls from citizens complaining about their neighbors about the drainage that their neighbors are causing,” Carroll told council members. “The fact that their neighbor did something and is blocking water or the fact that their neighbor did something that now more water is coming onto their property. Really what we’re trying to do by these Tier 1 and Tier 2 studies – there’s lots of parts of town that weren’t designed the way we look at engineering and drainage systems today. In fact, I looked in the last month, and we really had no rules in drainage before 1997.
“As we’re seeing lots of the old parts of town and even some of the newer parts of town, the drainage systems aren’t designed the way we would today. So, we’re seeing some drainage issues. Incrementally, little drainage by little drainage by little drainage are making bigger drainage problems. We’re just trying to have something that at least owners are thinking about what the impact to their neighbors will be.”
Under the amended drainage study tiers, Tier 3 developments include any project with two or less detached single-family residential lots or one commercial lot and an increase of impervious cover less than 5,000 square feet that doesn’t fall within any local or FEMA floodplains. A Tier 3 development under the amended UDC now requires an engineer to produce a formal drainage study. As noted, this can run a homeowner upwards of $5,000.
Danny Kreifels was one property owner facing this Tier 3 drainage study requirement, which he took issue with, calling the UDC requirements overly stringent for homeowners adding value to their properties without adding cars on the street or students into the schools.
“One of the things that bothers me the most is this is somebody adding to a home that’s already existing,” Kreifels said. “So he’s improving his land. He’s increasing his taxes. He’s improving his neighborhood without adding any car on the street, without adding another student in the school, without adding more utilities – water or anything else being used because it was already being used on this particular lot.”
Wayne and Chris Godsey, residents and builders in Boerne, also took issue with some of the requirements in the UDC amendment, noting the drainage study requirements begin in Tier 1 for any addition of 100 square feet of impervious cover or impervious cover less than or up to 2 percent, leaving no projects with out some form of drainage requirement.
Chris Godsey noted these requirements were adding undue strain on certain subsets of the population, pointing to residents looking to age into their homes who need to add downstairs bathrooms or master suites to avoid using stairs. She said this was adding a burden to these kinds of property owners who were already shelling out funds to be able to age in their own homes.
However, Carroll explained that Tier 1 drainage requirements are pretty lax, saying they could be done by the property owner on a napkin or a piece of paper simply showing what the plans are and where any water is expected to drain.
Developments will jump to a Tier 2 classification – which Carroll said will require an engineer to draft a plan but won’t require a full drainage study – if the lot is 5,339 square feet with up to 80 percent impervious cover, between 5,400 and 10,889 square feet with up to 50 percent impervious cover, between 10,890 and 43,559 square feet with a maximum of 40 percent impervious cover, between 1 and 10 acres with up to 25 percent impervious cover or larger than 10 acre with up to 10 percent impervious cover.
Under the amended UDC, a Tier 2 development will require a site exhibit showing drainage patterns, site boundaries, existing structures and any proposed improvements. While a Tier 2 project does require a letter from an engineer stating the project will not adversely impact any neighboring properties, the city may require a fully drainage study if the property is found to fall in an area “with known flooding problems determined by the city engineer.”
All projects that don’t meet Tier 1, 2 or 3 categories will fall under Tier 4, which requires a much more in-depth drainage study, including an adverse impact assessment and local floodplain determination. Carroll estimated drainage studies in this tier can run upwards of $15,000, but this tier is mostly reserved for large undertakings and commercial development.
“When we adopted the UDC last year, the intent behind that we all remember was to do some things to protect our future development plans,” Boerne Mayor Tim Handren said. “And we acknowledged at that time that it wasn’t perfect. We were going to make a few mistakes. We’ve gotten some feedback. We’re looking at this on a periodic basis where we do make changes to that UDC based on feedback that we’re getting. And we’re learning some unintended consequences in feedback like this.”
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