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Lake Stevens planners review CAO update proposing wider stream buffers and new aquifer protections
Summary
City staff presented a periodic update to Lake Stevens's Critical Areas Ordinance that would raise many stream buffers and add regulations for critical aquifer recharge areas; commissioners pressed staff on impacts to existing properties, monitoring, and growth targets.
City planning staff on Jan. 21 outlined proposed updates to Lake Stevens's Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) intended to align local rules with state law and the best available science, including larger stream buffers and a new chapter on critical aquifer recharge areas.
Principal Planner David Levitan told the commission the update is a Type 6 legislative amendment that follows the comprehensive plan periodic update and must be reviewed by the Department of Commerce and submitted to Ecology for review. He said the change is a targeted, technical update focused on stream buffers, wetland mitigation ratios, monitoring requirements and the addition of critical aquifer recharge area (CARA) regulations.
The packet proposes raising perennial and seasonal stream (type NP/NS) buffers from 50 feet to 100 feet and increasing fish'bearing stream (type F) buffers to 150 feet. Levitan said recent guidance shows a 100'foot buffer captures most ecological and pollutant removal benefits and that Fish and Wildlife'recommended riparian management zones based on site potential tree height could produce much larger buffers in Lake Stevens. "The alternative analysis shows you can get most of the ecological function with a 100-foot buffer while balancing other growth-management priorities," he said.
Levitan said legally built structures inside newly expanded buffers would be treated as legal nonconforming, which allows maintenance and many renovations within existing building footprints; new structures would be subject to the updated standards. He also described proposals for a preservation ratio in wetland mitigation and a monitoring requirement for mitigation performance, typically lasting three to five years and tracked through the permitting system.
A major addition in the draft is regulatory language for CARAs (pages 40'45 of the packet): designation, mapping, travel-path concepts for groundwater, prohibited and regulated uses, and special critical-area report requirements where projects may affect aquifer recharge or wellhead protection areas.
Commissioners pressed staff on implementation: who performs monitoring, how the city will treat land separated from streams by roads ("functionally disconnected buffers"), and whether expanded buffers would reduce developable land and jeopardize growth targets. Levitan said staff prepared a local best-available-science (BAS) report and an alternative analysis; the city believes the proposed standards can meet state requirements while preserving the capacity needed to meet growth targets, noting the city still shows a surplus of single'family capacity under current estimates.
Levitan said staff will continue to refine and restructure chapter 14.88 to remove redundancy, complete mapping and technical documentation, coordinate with state agencies and tribes, and publish a review draft for public comment ahead of public hearings before the planning commission and city council.
The commission took no formal action on the CAO at the meeting; Levitan said more technical work and public outreach are planned for late winter and early spring.
