BERG & BERG DEVELOPERS,
INC.
10050 Bandley Drive
Cupertino, CA 95014-2188
(408) 725-0700 fax (408) 725-1626
7/26/03
City
of San Jose
Department
of Planning and Building
801 N.
First Street, Room 400
San
Jose, CA 95110
Ph
408-277-4576 Fax 408-277-3250
Jenny
Nusbaum,
Reference:
New Regional Water Quality Control Board ~ Order No. 01-119
Santa
Clara County Municipal Stormwater NPDES Permit
In
regards to policies and ordinances adopted or to be adopted by the City of San
Jose we continue to protest the implementation of these orders. We and other
developers, engineering firms, municipalities are on record in prior
meetings with the City of San Jose and the Regional Water Quality Control Board
in opposition the implementation of this order in that the benefits are not
justified by the cost incurred to implement the requirements. We will not
reiterate the technical objections as they are of record. At the recent May
seminar sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Runoff Pollution Prevention Program
a cost example was given the indicated the cost of implementing the permit
requirements on a one acre commercial development project was $570,000.
Assuming a 30% retail coverage ratio that translates to $43.60/sf additional
cost on the building and that didn’t include the potential additional
requirements for mitigation of downstream peak flow limitations nor the capital
costs. The cost on housing is equally onerous.
We
have yet to hear what costs Public Works is projecting their costs will be
in implementing the requirements for the eventual requirements for storm
water treatment and detention on projects as small as 5000 square feet of
street paving replacement. To date we have not heard a figure on what it might
cost the City and eventually the taxpayers for that compliance. The
burden imposed by these new storm water regulations is tremendous. Having the
RWQCB impose inspectors on top of the city’s own enforcement staff is
redundant, costly and unnecessary. Why should one bureaucracy be inspecting
another?
It is
easily seen in reviewing the new regulations that they will have unintended
consequences as noted:
· Increased urban sprawl resulting from
underdevelopment of existing properties due to restrictions of these regulations.
What is not built here will be built elsewhere.
· Increased urban sprawl due to economic flight.
Increased unit cost due to the cost of these regulations will result in
economic flight of firms and housing to lower cost areas
· Underutilization of existing infrastructure
planned for optimum build out will not be used because these regulations will
limit optimum build out. Higher cost to municipalities due to lower
initial fee revenue and increased unit operation cost spread over a smaller
user base.
· Demand for new infrastructure in outlying areas.
Infrastructure not utilized in existing areas will need to be installed for
development forced out into outlying areas resulting in more total impervious
areas and runoff, not less!!.
· Lower tax revenues. State and federal tax
revenues will be reduced by the extent of the additional costs. Local agencies
will lose the corresponding real estate tax revenues.
· The costs and additional time restraints will be
considerably over what the local cities and counties have estimated. Expansion
of existing developments could not occur because detention of storm water on
site would not be possible with cost prohibitive underground storage and
revisions to existing onsite storm systems; potentially revisions would not be
possible.
We
have witnessed sadly deficient legislative and ill advised agency regulations
and their disastrous cost impacts before as is occurring now in the MTBE
debacle.
· Consumers were made to bear the cost burden of
the upgrade and refinery revamps to produce MTBE oxygenated fuels.
· Consumers were made to bear the cost burden of
the loss in fuel efficiency ranging as high as 10 to 13% reduction in fuel economy
instantly causing a 10 to 13% increase in the consumption/combustion of fossil
fuels with questionable reduction results in the generation of pollutants.
· Consumers, taxpayers and non-consumers alike will
bear the burden and cost of cleaning up the MTBE contamination and potentially
having to live with permanently damaged water supplies.
· Consumers will again have to bear the burden of
another costly round of refinery upgrades and revamps to produce the next
mandated clean fuel oxygenated fuel to replace MTBE based fuels.
This
is what happens when poorly crafted and little understood legislation is
implemented by agencies that cannot assess, understand or project the real
cost and other impacts of their actions.
These
regulations have not been well thought out. To summarize we wish to
convey our concerns over the Proposed New Development and Redevelopment
Requirements of the Santa Clara County Stormwater Permit.
1)
The engineering community as well as city and other governmental agencies did
not feel that concerns were fully or adequately responded to in prior
permits in the development of the proposed required management or mitigation
measures. These groups did not feel that the minimal potential environmental
benefits justify the cost impacts of implementation.
2)
We are concerned that the costs of these requirements will be very high.
Considering the costs associated with the proposed requirements there should be
a clearly identified and communicated correlation between what you are asking
the community to do and what those actions will accomplish.
3)
The proposed permit conditions that impose first one trigger threshold, than
another, create a "moving target" for business, industry and public
developers.
4)
The permit language goes beyond existing permit language (as that in Los
Angeles' permit) without justification, and without consideration of local
geology, climate, hydrology, urban planning "smart growth" goals and
current land use costs. The prescriptive nature of the proposed permit language
would require certain types of structures, even where, due to local conditions,
they would not achieve their desired results.
5)
The implementation schedule is unreasonably short. An implementation schedule
should be agreed upon between the RWQCB and the implementing agencies that
provides sufficient time for them to involve the regulated community in
stakeholder meetings, coordinate efforts within the County and otherwise ensure
that they have time to do all that is necessary to implement successful
programs.
6)
Implementation of the Santa Clara County permit place this area at an
economic disadvantage within the region and within the state and even with
global competitors. You’ve read and heard the news of IBM and other firms
planning the relocation of literally millions of jobs to foreign countries.
7)
There are potential unintended consequences of the proposed permit
requirements.
· By limiting mitigation to on-site measures (such
as detention/retention ponds, underground structures, etc.) the proposed
regulation discourages high-density development, urban in-fill and
re-development and conversely encourages sprawl, with all of its associated
higher infrastructure and environmental costs.
·
By limiting mitigation to
on-site measures, other creative options are forgone, such as neighborhood,
commercial area or other grouped mitigation structures. By requiring individual
mitigations, the cost to individual projects is increased. This is a concern
for all development.
We of
course support the concept of waiver programs but condition that support
without the knowledge of what the financial impacts of the wavier programs will
be and object to the onerous underlying requirements necessitating the need for
waivers. We continue to oppose these regulations on the basis that the
“Regional Board” nor the City of San Jose have demonstrated the
feasibility that the minimal potential environmental benefits justify the cost
impacts of implementation.”
Sincerely,
Myron
Crawford