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Commissioners probe wetland buffer averaging, mitigation options
Summary
During a Q&A, a commissioner pressed staff to clarify how buffer averaging and a 75% minimum operate; staff explained averaging reduces buffers in disturbed parts of a site while increasing them elsewhere and confirmed a 25% maximum reduction rule.
A commissioner asked staff to explain buffer averaging provisions that allow reductions of wetland buffers in some places if offset by increases elsewhere. The exchange focused on the rule that the narrowest portion of an averaged buffer cannot be less than 75% of the standard width — meaning a 100-foot standard buffer could not be narrowed to less than 75 feet at its narrowest point.
Planning Manager Libby Grama walked the commission through the mechanics: buffer averaging can reduce the buffer in disturbed portions of a site when other areas are preserved or enhanced, but the regulation limits the maximum reduction so that overall functions and values remain protected. Grama said the technical details and five criteria that govern when averaging is allowed are in the consultant materials and will be carried into the draft code language.
The commissioners also discussed mitigation options such as habitat enhancement measures and an in-lieu fee possibility that the city would need to set up before it could be used.
