Community Environment Government

City proposes increased protections for wetlands, other critical areas

The city of Gig Harbor is considering code updates that would increase protections for environmentally sensitive areas, such as wetlands. 

At a Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 5, Eric Baker, the city’s community development director, laid out the proposed changes that city staff drafted last year. They include increasing buffer zones around wetlands, maintaining setbacks and adding a couple stipulations to aquifer recharge zones.

These proposed updates are meant to prevent long-lasting, sometimes irreversible damage to the environment as more development moves into the area. They will also apply to individuals looking to make changes to existing homes or building new ones.

Baker highlighted that while the code update will make land less developable in Gig Harbor, future revisions to the city’s housing code will make other properties more developable.

The changes are still only in the blueprint phase and would not immediately go into effect, Baker said. The city will conduct public outreach during the first quarter of this year in preparation for both Planning Commission and city council consideration soon after. 

Wetlands updates

Most of the code updates focus on wetlands. The city must now adhere, at minimum, to standards set by the state departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife when it comes to protecting them. The city may make its environmental codes more restrictive than the state’s if it wishes, but not less restrictive.

The biggest wetland protection change comes in the form of increasing the minimum buffer zones around certain kinds of wetlands. A buffer is an area of natural vegetation upland from a wetland that acts as a protective transition barrier between a development and the wetland. Buffers sit between the development and the wetland and perform a variety of functions, including creating habitat for wildlife and filtering pollutants.

“Buffers are intended to be left alone or improved,” Baker said. “So no clearing, no logging, definitely no structures. All of that is not intended to be in a buffer area without a habitat management plan showing how you’re going to mitigate for that.”

There are a variety of wetlands. The state rates a wetland on a categorization scale of one to four, based on its ecological importance and environmental sensitivity, with one being the most sensitive. The city is considering changing regulations for wetlands classified as category one and two.

The city of Gig Harbor’s proposed revisions to wetlands buffer zones, based on best available science.

“The range is going away in one, but if you look at not meeting above characteristics under category two wetland buffers, you note that instead of 50 —100, it’s now 100 — 225,” Baker explained, referring to the WETLANDS table. “That would be an instance where if somebody was building near a category two wetland, or wanted to build near a category two wetland, the new code would require an additional 125 feet to be reviewed for buffer width and required mitigation if somebody wanted to build within it.”

Changing science

While this may seem like a major change, none of this all that surprising or new, Baker pointed out. Wetland buffer zones have been increasing for decades, as best available science has changed over time.

“​​It used to be 25-foot buffers and 50-foot buffers. And then best available science figured out that, ‘OK, that might be great for shading wetlands and shading streams, but water quality and sedimentation isn’t handled by that,’” he said. “And then a series of other potential pollutants were being considered. So, wetland buffers have been getting larger over time. This would not be the first time that an increased buffer might have an impact on an existing development. However, this is the newest instance where this could be occurring.”

Developers looking to build around wetlands must also assess the use of the land. They will be required to implement more mitigation depending on the intended use of the development, Baker said.

That use largely runs from low to high. Low-use land activities include passive recreational trails and certain agricultural activities, while high-use land activities include things like housing developments and shopping centers.

Additionally, the city will continue to require developers maintain setbacks — minimum distances —  between a development and a wetland buffer. Unlike buffers, developers can change setbacks in different ways, including paving them. However, they still cannot build additional structures in them.

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Land development

Baker said that while this code update proposal would make it harder to develop around wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas, the city must also balance out the state’s directive to create more middle housing.

That’s where phase two of the city’s housing code updates comes in, he said. Those will focus on land not covered under the code addressing environmentally sensitive areas and allow more of that land to be developed.

“The goal between the two operations is that we are going to be able to meet our housing goals by allowing greater heights of development, allowing reduced setbacks,” he said. “So, you’re recapturing some of the land and then allowing people to build higher. Single-family detached homes are going to be a challenge to meet our housing goals, but housing that’s attached, or housing that is multifamily is something that is going to need to be pursued to be able to meet our housing goals. But that is the follow-on exercise to this.”

Some planning commissioners asked what would happen to property owners already in the middle of construction. Baker said “certain properties” could be problematic, but “I don’t think we would ever say ‘No, you can’t,’ because there is … what’s called a reasonable use exception.”

“Let’s say you have a vacant property that you used to have developable land on, and now it’s entirely within a wetland or in a wetland or wetland buffer,” he said. “You can apply for a reasonable use exception, which does give you some ability to build something on the property. It isn’t necessarily what you want to build on it, but there can be an argument — and this is approved by the hearing examiner — exactly what you could build in there.”

“So, you’ll never hear me say that something cannot be built on a piece of property, regardless of these codes,” he continued. “Just that there are codes in place that are going to require a significant amount of review and a significant amount of mitigation on site or off site. The costs of doing so may be outside certain people’s economic abilities.”

Impacts

None of this, however, is intended to upend anyone’s lives, Baker emphasized.

“No one’s homes are getting torn down. Nobody’s businesses are being destroyed,” he said. “However, it does have an impact on what can be done in that land in regards to redevelopment or in regards to expansions or additions to homes. When I highlight critical areas, it is not just people who own vacant land. It is people who happen to have a home or a building that happens to be near a wetland that now may be inside the buffer and thus impacting what they can do in the future.”

Baker said that the city is going through its mapping system to notify people whose homes or businesses are within 300 feet of a wetland. The city will start engaging more with the public about these proposed changes starting this week.