The convergence of dialogue, data, and disaster have sparked a more serious look at regulations that impact water management and development in San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Monday.
Revisions to the City’s impervious cover policies will likely add to the longstanding contention between developers and environmentalists. That fight is a political “Pandora’s box,” he added, but it’s time to stop ignoring the “seriousness of the situation.”
Hurricane Harvey, which claimed 77 lives, helped expose that situation, the mayor said. New data-driven analyses of how a storm of that magnitude could impact San Antonio combined with local and statewide conversations about resiliency and preparedness have provided city leaders with a “moment in time” to rethink development patterns and practices, he added.
In that vein, the San Antonio River Authority is working with the City’s Office of Sustainability and Transportation and Capital Improvements (TCI) on a timeline for an official review of impervious cover regulations, Nirenberg said. He expects to see a draft timeline by next week.
Nirenberg spoke Monday at a water forum at the Witte Museum, which was hosted by the River Authority and moderated by Rivard Report Publisher Robert Rivard. Water experts and elected officials discussed the San Antonio River’s challenges and triumphs, including recently released models that show the city’s vulnerabilities to flooding.
Impervious cover refers to surfaces – buildings, streets, and other structures – that interfere with rainwater’s ability to reach the ground. The further water has to travel to get to the ground or a stream, the more likely it is to pick up contaminants. Restrictions on impervious cover are especially strict over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, so as to ensure that water can be filtered by soil and pool in the aquifer. While some argue that those restrictions should be implemented citywide, others say they would make development cost-prohibitive and impede the growth needed to accommodate the additional 1 million people expected to live in the area by 2040.
“The stormwater threat that we have is very real, and we need to see what we can do to ensure that our river is protected,” Suzanne Scott, River Authority general manager, told the audience of more than 550. But the City can “balance development with protection,” she added.
Language regarding impervious cover policy goals was weakened in the Sustainability Plan included in SA Tomorrow, the City’s comprehensive growth plan, before it was approved last year.
“We basically said, ‘Some conversations are off limits,’” Nirenberg explained. “Discussion and data is what we lacked.”
The City’s Planning Commission removed altogether the provision to “develop and implement effective impervious surface standards for new development and redevelopment projects.” City Council later reached a compromise, changing the strategy to: “Through a representative stakeholder process, [the City will] conduct a science-based assessment of the impact of increased impervious cover and determine if development standards are needed to address flooding, water quality, and urban heat islands.”
That stakeholder process will soon be initiated, Nefi Garza, assistant director of TCI, told the Rivard Report after the water forum. The City and River Authority already are looking into more “science-based assessments” of impervious cover.
“There certainly is an impact [of impervious cover],” Garza said. “But we’re trying to understand what it is.”
The City and River Authority essentially are taking an inventory of existing regulations and rules that have to do with impervious cover, from the tree ordinance to impact fees.
“There [are] a lot of things in play now that I think need to be included in the equation when we’re talking about revamping or restructuring the policies,” Garza said.
The City doesn’t require low-impact development features that manage the quantity and quality of stormwater. Instead, such features are incentivized and encouraged.
“And that doesn’t work,” Garza said. “We’re also looking at that. We’re working with the River Authority to define what low-impact development means to us.”
Soil type is part of the stormwater runoff equation, Garza said. “Are clay soils – about 60% of our city – also contributing to the flooding?”
The River Authority is currently researching that theory and others. Resulting information could impact where certain regulations are implemented and, therefore, how the city grows.
This review process has been in the works for years, Garza said, but Harvey “put things into focus.”
Meanwhile, the City is working with the University of Texas at San Antonio on a climate action plan – even more data – that will dovetail into policies on impervious cover.
This summer, CPS Energy contributed $500,000 toward the research that will lead to the City’s first plan to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s about time. Impervious cover affects everyone who gets a SAWS bill in the City. Your stormwater fee is based on how much impervious cover you have. It used to be based on lot size only – and that wasn’t great, either.
As it stands now, my mid-century ranch on a half-acre lot has lots of trees and reasonable grass, flower and vegetable beds (and low-water bills, I’m frugal) has minimal storm runoff and a very gentle slope. I even capture rainwater for hand watering. But I pay the same or more than similar sized houses densely built with minimum setbacks on steep slopes in caliche soils with few trees in the northern part of the city (I’m looking at you, Stone Oak…). Larger setbacks, or smaller houses on the small lots would help – but that can contribute to sprawl, so it’s not easy.
Regardless, the “Federal Stormwater Fee” has no business on your SAWS bill. It’s a payment to the City based on physical improvements made to real property – and that sounds an awful lot like a property tax. If you want to tax me, then tax me, but call it what it is and get it off my SAWS bill.
Dear Joe,
The staff of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance would like to further discuss your ideas on this issue. If you are interested, please contact me at annalisa@aquiferalliance.org.
Thank you,
Annalisa Peace
The focus on impervious cover at the site- or lot-level biases this discussion towards poor decisions. The photo at the top of this article illustrates that bias. It suggests that densely built areas are the core of the problem. That leads to the conclusion that suburban property on a large lot is the solution. The outcome is individual sites that may better manage water, connecting big box stores and lots and lots of parking with wider and wider streets. A development with 100 homes of 3,000 sf with 30 foot setbacks on half acre lots has more impervious cover as 100 homes of 3,000 sf on one-eighth acre lots and 10 foot setbacks, but the large lots require more pavement. Either of those will have more impervious cover than 100 two-story townhouses in a neighborhood where the preferred travel mode is walking.
agreed!
On an absolute basis, I might agree with you, but on a relative, site- or lot-level basis, I can’t.On an absolute basis, I might agree with you, but on a relative, site- or lot-level basis, I can’t.
A 2-story 3,000 sf home on a 1/8th acre lot, with an attached 2-car garage, driveway and sidewalks is about 60-70% impervious cover – just on the lot, before y0u factor in roads and supporting infrastructure. Relative to the lot, the water has nowhere to go, so it flows into the street. Postage stamp lots with McMansions on them are a real problem. On a developmental scale (x 100 houses…) a minimum permeable cover ratio per home site may be necessary – which means code or plat restrictions – which means changes to the law to eliminate “grandfathered” plats. Good luck fighting the developers.
100 2-story townhouses are surrounded by what? Parking lots, or are they built with “luxury” attached garages? Where are the trees for air quality and shade, over in Hardberger Park? What about the strip malls with the restaurants that pop up to serve them? How many supermarkets are there near the Pearl? Does anyone actually walk to the Pearl?
Use the example of San Marcos student apartments and 2015 flooding. Super-dense housing, poorly built and sited relative to the natural drainage systems contributed to much worse flooding than previously because they densely built up and out and pushed the runoff away.
You MUST consider the individual “site” and its capacity to absorb or propensity to shed water.
Large lots and sprawl aren’t the answer, but neither is a pipe-dream of dense urban infill townhomes. That ship sailed when San Antonio chose to use above-ground creeks and didn’t build a storm-sewer system. And again when San Antonio repeatedly votes against light-rail, and quibbles about supporting Via, and chose to support Vista Ridge…to meet the demands of large suburban lots.
The impervious-cover question is in two parts: what is going to be done AND how is that going to be paid for.
More talk, and I still count at least 15 vacant City of San Antonio sidewalk tree wells in my immediate area a few miles from downtown–when we are in prime tree planting season and meant to be planting a bunch of trees to help mark our Tricentennial.
There’s no clear path to requesting a tree planting via the City’s main, 311 or SA300 websites. It’s no Pandora’s Box–just a lot of empty sidewalk boxes (filling up with stormwater) and no action.
Remember, there are other impacts to sustainability that need to be factored in to the equation. Martha’s earlier point is one, but adding to that is a lower density sprawling city will result in more vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and bring with it several adverse impacts. Those include carbon pollution, additional natural resources to build the extra infrastructure (roads, sewer lines, ugly overhead power lines, etc..) as well as the adverse impact to quality of life by being subjected to longer commutes. These are simply the reality of lower density development.
Not all impervious cover is equal—it’s not all bad. These surfaces provide a ready-made alternative to San Antonio’s worst nightmare, an inevitable shortage of its existing water supply. To reduce damaging runoff and increase the water supply, an innovative solution would be to encourage rainwater harvesting far beyond the existing levels. One need only look below the ground to realize this practice is not new, just forgotten. Well before there was a SAWS that could import other people’s water as an alternative to a finite quantity of water from the Edwards Aquifer, cisterns were commonly used to store rainwater. A brick one, assumed to be built at the time of construction in the 1870’s, was discovered at the Halff House in Hemisfair Park. In downtown San Antonio, a similarly constructed cistern of a comparable time period was uncovered by a work crew during excavation work for the San Antonio Fish Market and Bakery Restaurant at the corner of Saint Mary’s Street and Commerce Street. According to the Texas Water Development Board Rainwater Harvesting Manual: “Such notable historic structures as the Stillman House in Brownsville, the Fulton Mansion near Rockport, the Freeman Plantation near Palestine and the Carrington-Couvert House in Austin collected rain from their roofs, and then guttered and piped the water into an aboveground tank or cellar cistern. While many of these systems are no longer in use, they signify the importance that early Texas settlers placed on captured rainfall for sustenance.” In Houston, rainwater was captured in a massive 15 million gallon underground cistern built in 1926 and used it as water supply until 2007. Clearly, appropriate regulation of impervious cover is in the future for San Antonio. Yet, the city need only look to the past for innovation that can reduce that damaging runoff today and create a local, renewable source of water for tomorrow—rainwater harvesting.
I’m revisiting this thread for a variety of reasons, but foremost is a lack of leadership or cohesive coordination.
A factor in runoff that was mentioned in several comments is rainwater capture via barrels or cisterns. Did anyone know that just this week “large cisterns” were a topic at this week’s SAWS Community Conservation Committee? https://www.saws.org/who_we_are/community/ccc/docs/CCC_Agenda_20180110.pdf
Did anyone even know there was a meeting? Did you know that the minutes of this meeting will likely never be published, based on past record?
Why not? Because it wasn’t publicized! SAWS didn’t list it. The Mayor didn’t promote it. The Councilman (D9) who has the current Chair of the Committee doesn’t follow up on it. And the vast majority of San Antonians are blissfully ignorant.
Task forces, working groups, community involvement doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if the powers-that-be aren’t held accountable to actually addressing the problems.