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TC Minutes 01-31-19950 E Partial Transcription of Council Worksession Held January 31, 1995 Introductions Mayor Pro-Tem C.C. Nottingham, Councilor Tom Hines, Councilor Richard Carnes, Town Attorney John Dunn, Mark Donaldson, Steve with Land Designs, Mike Claffey with the Army Corps of Engineers, and Town Planner Mary Holden. Councilor John Hazard and Town Manager Bill James arrived after 'the introductions. C.C. asked, "Mark, on this, are you the architect or what?" Mark said, "I'm the Planner for the project. Are you talking about the Boulders, or Nottingham Station. I'm the architect for the North Project, (the railroad part) and the planner for both. I'm here today to listen and certainly in the spirit of cooperation to find out where you are heading with some of these issues. I will participate at any level you would like me to, but otherwise I will be pretty quiet." C.C. said, "We have made contact with Mike to get some good and current information about what kind of an issue we are dealing with and basically Mike - it is because our guidelines were, developed many years ago and we just haven't had enough spare afternoons to sit there and say what should we do today. Let's look through-our guidelines, came to my attention after one project had been approved that basically in today's updated awareness and sensitivity to the river, and wildlife habitat, open space - the whole gamete - that if we're wearing the stewardship hat, of being in charge, we want to make sure that we are doing the best thing, and find some vision with the'best information we have available today. And, so we wanted to bring you here and give us some things that we might be aware of, as we look to perhaps update our guidelines, especially since the County and Ellie Caryl and another committee which is what - the Eagle River Management Plan. We've got so many of these groups going on about water and rivers that the names are just going like crazy. Since they are coming up with perhaps new guidelines that they would like to suggest to municipalities and it would benefit everybody if we had consistency, even within our own county - and then who knows - state wide and that type of thing." C.C. said, "A couple of, well I'll get into what I brought later on, because I think then, I thought it was going to. But, I know that you visited the sight. I don't know during what month - I know that the sight visit we just made with the Town Council ran a little deep in snow - and so hard to visualize things. 0 0 We do have some concerns about new jargon that maybe a few months ago we didn't even think about - like riparian zones verses wetlands - the whole schmear, so can I just Mike said, "First of all, I'll start off real quick with what we do and what our responsibilities are as a federal agency. The administration section four - which requires anyone that is going to discharge dredge or fill material into the waters of the United States that they obtain a (unable to transcribe - too soft of voice) which includes rivers of the United States and adjacent wetlands. Wetlands are defined as areas that are saturated (unable to transcribe - too soft of voice). Mike said, "What that means is wetlands are any boggy wet areas that the ground water or either surface water flooding stays close enough to the surface of the soil during the off season (unable to transcribe - too soft of voice) plants that are adapted to wetlands. Plants provide critical wildlife habitat. (unable to transcribe - too soft of voice). They basically act as a big sponge in the flood plain. (unable to transcribe - too soft of voice). But, any way, that is a wetland. And, that is what we-regulate - anything in wetlands. We do not regulate activities in what are called riparian areas. Now this gets a little confusing because wetlands alone - say the Eagle River right adjacent to the Eagle River are also riparian areas - some of them just look like riparian areas and I would come out and say that can possibly be wetlands. But there are riparian areas that are outside the wetland boundaries. The riparian area quite often goes further than the wetland does. And it is - there are many definitions of riparian areas - the simplest is just plant community grown alongside the stream or lake. It doesn't have any requirements for high water table and it isn't as saturated as the wetlands. Probably the most important function is that they stabilize their stream bank, shape, drought, maintain the integrity of the stream. We do not regulate anything in riparian areas. Somebody has just a riparian area - no wetlands - which does happen - some of them do but doesn't have to come to us for a permit = it's not wetland. They usually do come to us for what's called a jurisdiction determination which is the phase we are at with this Boulders project." Mary asked, "What about the Nottingham Station?" Mike said "Nottingham Station project - they have sent in a request for jurisdiction determination for us to verify the wetland boundary area that they have delineated. once they do that - we have to go out in the field - we are expected to do that - to go out and look at it below high water to see if it is accurate. The work outside of that is not regulated - outside of the wetland boundary - even it is riparian. That's what we do. The question that has been raised - is what should the Town of Avon do'about their riparian areas. 2 I guess the riparian areas are important and supposedly county governments such as Boulder or City of Boulder and Pitkin County have developed riparian ordinances. San Miguel County has (unable to transcribe)." C.C. asked, "Richard are you a little familiar with that?" Mike said, "What it says basically, is you basically need to avoid any development on riparian lands. If you can't avoid riparian areas and the county decides to give them a permit to disturb the riparian areas, they have to mitigate where their disturbance, by equal volume replacement-of woody vegetation. What that means is, if you have a corridor of willows, they have to replace that corridor with willows somewhere else, and this I don't quite understand. But, you can just replace a riparian area by putting in another vegetation by the stream with an equal body of vegetation. San Miguel County is a little bit more - I believe their's just says you won't impact wetlands. And, I don't know how they actually did give someone a permit, if they did." Tom asked, "How much of theirs is riparian?" Mike said, "Theirs is wetlands. It doesn't specify riparian specifically." C.C. said, "That of course is where Telluride got into the mess." Mike said, "The San Miguel County ordinance come on after the Telluride violation." Mark said, "I think you have a setback and lot of the county has a setback and also Colorado has a setback from the stream - from either ordinary high water - I think yours is - Vails is from the center line. Everybody has a different kind of setback. Well, setbacks may be easier to understand than an engineer can go out and put it on a plan and that's it, see ya. It really doesn't make a lot of sense, cause what we want to do, is we want to manage for the riparian area - if that is what you want to do - or wetlands - if that's what you want to do. So you really need to go through a border or a boundary of vegetated zone that is an important eco system. Or, if your managing for - if your not really managing or trying to protect ecological value, but just a view corridor, than you could come up with another definition - whatever you want - but something at the top of the bank - whatever. But, a set 25 feet or it may be 50 feet from the stream bank or 50 feet from the middle of the creek - that 50 feet may take you all the way up on (unable to transcribe). That really has no functioning ecological value that supports that stream. Although they all do at some feet - I'm just not sure which numbers are important for stream maintenance. (unable to transcribe last comment in this segment)." 3 C.C. asked, "Some what?" Mike said, "Its just grass." Tom said, "If I could ask you a question. Since your primary function is to deal with the wetland how does that eliminate your work - I mean, yea, if degradation and riparian and habitat - it certainly has to have an impact on what riparians - I don't understand why it is specifically on the wetlands and not on riparian areas." Mike said, "It gets back to the law. The law is between water rights. In fact, in the clean water act and the whole law the word wetlands in not even mentioned. Wetlands were brought about through regulations - through a variety of law suits in the early 70's against the government by environmental groups. And it was recognized that wetlands were important in maintaining water quality. So wetlands were mentioned in law suits by jurisdiction and expanded to wetlands - ever quite gone into the riparian areas, although in the future it might. But riparian, and wetlands are a transition zone between dry land and open . water and they are saturated at sometime,.during the season, near the surface of the soil. So there - it probably would have been easier to reach out and say if you're regulating wetlands as the waters of the United States or is it if you went to riparian areas the payoff - the water table in the riparian area may be 3 feet- down at the highest." Tom asked, "Both are inter-related to such an extent that degradation of riparian certainly leads to degradation of wetlands?" Mike said, "Well not all the time but, it certainly can happen. But, degradation of straight riparian areas - well, in a lot of cases along the river like the Eagle River will meet the degragation of water quality. You know, work on an upright if your all familiar with riparian than (unable to transcribe) wetland by run offs and (unable to transcribe). We are not going to become a land news agency that regulates every person." Mike said, "I was asked to come up here our thoughts - this is not the official government. I would suggest if you are pursuing this - some type of ordinance ordinance - that you think about hiring with that. There are various wetland ci for developers or ecologists that could kind of writing - writing up a document to give you my thoughts position of federal really interested in riparian or wetlands a consultant to help you Dnsultants that do work also help you with this like this. Richard asked, "Can you describe (unable to transcribe)?" 4 i C.C. said, "And, I'm kind of concerned that we get the good definition on the tape so that we could share it with our Councilmembers who are not here." Richard said, "I understand (unable to transcribe)." Mike stood up and away from the microphone, using the flip chart to draw the definition of wetlands and riparian areas. Mike said, "This is a stream cross section. This being an ordinary high water - the dash line. In the delineations, you might have willows in here - fairly large willows, okay. This may be a wetland boarder or boundary that we would flag as wetlands. Up in here, you may have some species like service berry, some alder, maybe even some more willows. And then up in here, on this bench, you may have the big cottonwoods. This is the wetland boundary - the reason it's wetland is because ordinary high waters, right in here, its saturated long enough to get a growing season that we get these dominates of plants - we have a list of what plants are found in wetlands and they are in here 5096 or more. Up in here maybe just as vegetative - and you look at it and say why isn't that wetland - it looks the same to me. It just doesn't have the water table close enough to the surface to make it a wetland. It is however riparian, because it is adjacent to the stream and it is somewhat affected by the stream's hydrology. When you get up into here - somewhere up in here - you may come up to a dry meadow or in some cases conifers forest. This would probably not be classed as riparian. It is really not an easy concept. I had to give a talk at a seminar last year and my whole topic was suppose to be the difference between riparian and wetlands. And, I went to the library and got some forest service publication and researched publication that they had done and their definitions were way-.different than BLM - way different than ours, the Corps of Engineers. Everybody, even the federal government, has a different definition of riparian. The forest service definition would include large areas around the stream, whether or not it was literally adjacent. To carry this a little further, this may be the edge of riparian - this maybe say a dried up conifers forest. You may go back here and the surface of the ground drops a little - say there is a mountain coming up here - there is a spring coming out here - this area may be wetland - this is what we would call wetlands - could be a real boggy area - with hedges and grasses inundated to the surface, saturated - fed by this spring. To me, under the definition, I would use - and a lot of people agree - this is not riparian. There is no surface stream or lake here. It's a vegetated wetland regulated by us, but not considered riparian. Whereas this would be pretty dry - you could walk right through a lot of the cottonwood galleries that are in this part of the state are riparian areas." 5 0 0 Richard asked, "On the right side of that map, there where you are drawing, there is not a wetland - it goes straight to riparian?" Mike said, "Yes. There might be a little fringe of wetlands - maybe right there. And, this happens a lot. And, then it goes straight up and probably about in here; we would call a riparian area. Now it may have cottonwoods - it may not - it may be just all grass. And, that would have to be a call, that would have to be made, where we would consider riparian. Riparian does not have to always be where woody vegetative trees and shrubs." C.C. said, "One of the things that we didn't know - if it was an easy thing to determine - if we just had - if we could easily call - this is before learning a little bit anyway - from bank to bank perhaps, that you know that was the riparian habitat and that sort of thing. One may bench up and step up, or whatever - we talked a little bit about primary - shall we disturb primary banks, secondary banks - and we know that there are some meadows that just slope into a nice body of water, and than we've got some cliff sides there whatever and everything in between. Where you have the cliff side type one - where it just goes up and you know that it would be very difficult to walk along those and - what happens - I don't know where I am going with this - but removing that cliff side, that steep drop into the stream - and I am looking for the negative effects, to be aware of, that it may have on the river habitat. I mean removing it like twelve feet down." Mike said, "You could severely impact the morphology of the stream." C.C. asked, "What's morphology?" Mike said, "The stability of the stream. Streams are all different types of streams - have different types of morphology and they can't go right into the bank of the stream and remove the bank of the stream without affecting some of the morphology. It can possibly be done directly but, if you have a twelve foot bank along the stream or a cliff, and you are talking about taking a whole cliff out, that is there for a reason - if it's on the outside end of the stream it's stabilizing the stream - once you take that out, the stream is going to move." C.C. asked, "What about if it's in a straight line - you know it's just part of the land formation?" Mike said, "I don't know what the affects of that would be. I would have to look at it and actually that's really not my area of expertise - that would be more of a hydrologist." 6 C.C. said, "And, I am kind of wondering, maybe the obvious one is, if it's a straight up and down, maybe the less obvious if it banks a little and than,it goes up to it.very obvious straight removing that and I'm just having Mike said, "Once you get a far distance from the stream - like this upper bank - you are probably not going to affect the stream that much, or the upper terrace. You will affect - if it's a big enough cut and.it's not stabilized - you will affect the stream. And that's what happens with a lot of our road construction. (something about construction around Silverthorne and the DOT spent a lot of money to fix it up = unclear transcription). That's a big affect - they didn't go into the stream at all, they just - a huge cut in the mountain side sent a lot of sediment and road sediment into the stream. So working in an upper terrace, while it may not directly affect the (unable to transcribe)." Tom said, "Mike, I'm trying to understand how you work and the process here. They hire somebody to come and delineate what they consider to be the wetlands on their property. And, then you come back and you clarify as to what that boundary may be? Mike said, "We verify the boundary. We walk the boundary." If we agree with this - we basically - they have to get the boundary surveyed. We have that plan and we send a letter verifying the boundary - saying this is an accurate representation. If we disagree with it, we change it in the field. And, they resurvey it.or re-map it a little bit. Then they send that to us with the corrected map. Then we send the letter." Tom asked, "You can only do that process in the spring when you have warm weather?" Mike said, "Well we do it all summer. It doesn't have to be just in the-spring, but we can't do it in the winter." Tom said, "Okay, so in your process, they can't move forth until they have that from the Corps of Engineers. Do you - are you ever concerned with - I am, you delineate a boundary - are you ever concerned with encroaching up to that boundary line or just what's within the boundaries itself." Mike said, "We are concerned with it, but we do not regulate it. Under our law, you can come right to the boundary. You can build right up to the boundary. It will affect it. We recommend, to local agencies, for their permitting process-, to get them away from that boundary. We do, also, tell them in writing that if they - a unit / house right up against the boundary - and I have seen this happen - where we are going to end up in a violation, because it's almost impossible to build right up next to a boundary without getting some dirt into the water. No contractor around is that good, that they can dig and not impact the water." 7 i C.C. asked, "If they gave.ten feet of space." Mike said, "If they put it on a plan. It's not going to happen." Tom said, 110K, to some extent, I guess we are here trying to gather your opinion and expertise on this issue. And, I guess we're primarily dealing with riparian area - that is kind of out of your forte'. Going back to primary / secondary type of a situation - I'm just logically - and I don't-have'a clue as to morphology and hydrology - but you know if there is a certain situation that exists where you have a sort of,a bench on that property, and so you're dealing with what you might,call primary / secondary - I'm trying to establish within-my own mind the definition of riparian. And, it's kind of difficult to go from bank to bank if what we're dealing with is terrace benches - you know where do you draw a line?" Mike said, "Riparian environment is where the vegetation is influenced by the river and effluences the river." Tom said"So, primarily that means anything definitely within bank to bank. What happens in an area where you have a terraced sort of situation, where you may have a primary bank or that elevation - all of a sudden it widens out in an area, and it is steep on one side, and you have a terraced effect that comes down, but the elevation bank to bank, where it widens out, it's kind of difficult to say, well that 100 yards or whatever it may be, because of the terraced effect - all that-is riparian?" Mike said, "It depends on the vegetation. If it's terraced up here and although it gets pretty wide from the stream - if it's still cottonwoods and some undergrowth, than yes, it is riparian. Unable to transcribe - too many people talking at once. Mike said, "Now if someone develops an ordinance for riparian, then you have to come up with a scientific definition - to come up with a legal boundary. But if there are cottonwoods and some alder or willow or any of the other riparian plants up there on the high bank, then that is riparian. If they stop down here and then above that is a grass area, but it is still going up to another terrace, that may not be riparian." Mark said, "So, the idea of going bank to bank is probably too general., Because, on this particular project we probably have several tiers of banks. In fact, the argument would be, you know the top of the mountain, across the valley, of the last bank, in this part, of the valley. I think we are really trying to get a grip of what is the bank of the river." 8 • 0 Mike said, "The bank of the river is not riparian. The bank of the river is that lower elevation right below - that's the bank of the river." Mark said, "We've all misused the term bank of the river. I think, what we should try to do, to come to grips with this, is to understand the vegetation delineation." C.C. said, "Do you have to wait to see what things are growing to see what is there?" Mike said, "No." Tom said, "To some extent your cottonwoods may extend past what we might misuse as a bank definition. A lot of that extends back, but depending on what your water table may be. I guess primarily my main concern is - and I haven't attended all these things but, you know if, you definitely degraded if you start impacting that riparian vegetation on the banks. You also - you are losing that environment. I'm trying to clarify how we come about defining that riparian. And, I can't use bank to bank. I wish I could, but you know, you come up with a fairly definable means and you've mentioned that Boulder and Pitkin-have a riparian ordinance - I would really be interested in looking at that." Too many people speaking at one time = unable to transcribe. C.C.- said, "It sounds to me, with conversations we have had, and I don't want to say that wetland is passsay, but the more sensitive, planning for the welfare, the future type situation is mapping the riparian way, rather than just limiting it to just the wetlands. It's just a more ethical,- moral, sensitive thing to do. Even though it may not have the legal bite, but wetlands do - as far as this clean water act and all." Mike said, "Riparian areas are important. They are recognized as important areas in Colorado. In this - I wouldn't even say for their project - the Eagle River in general - the riparian corridor is the vegetative community and basically the river dominated by riparian plants - cottonwoods, willow, service berry." Too many people speaking at one time = unable to transcribe.. C.C. said, "Even though there is no law - whatever - I just can't help go back just because it's legal doesn't make it right as far as the stewardship we have. And, you know it scares me when you say service berries - boy, Highway 6 right here, you can pull your car over and pick service berries right there." Mike said, "Along the river?" 9 • C.C. said, "Yes. And, even where asparagus plants - you know how they need boggy. I know what property,.where the wild asparagus are growing - up near the top. Anyway, I guess I had also talked to you about - if you were rewriting guidelines for our town, or something like that, what would you like it. We have had a lot of copies and information about other communities, towns, and municipalities and what they have for setbacks. And, you know, the words that they throw around there. Now, I realize, perhaps I don't know if they are properly used or improperly used - we've been throwing the words around too, and finding out'they have many definitions. But, I believe you told me - we were talking about the bank and how many feet back from the bank - and that you would like - if you could have your drothers . . . . . OK, an artificial is from the middle of the stream, from the edge of the stream, from the highwater mark - you'd go on vegetation, rather than - and how far back from riparian vegetation would you go?" Mike said, "I don't know." C.C. said, "Because we have been doing it in an old fashioned way." Mike said, "The way we do things is on a case by case basis. And, we look at the type of development. For instance, a single family home is not that intrusive as a condo complex." C.C. said, "Like 74 condos, above bank?" Mike said, "Or a City Market with that large area of parking or a mall or something. It would be up to you. The first thing we do is get a-map and see how much of your town is.riparian and than decide if you do want to want to buffer it, what would it be." C.C. said, "To protect riparian, I know that it depends on - if you're looking at something that looks like this or this, you know - how the degree of the topography changes and you want to be away from the vegetation that shows that. And, when you t_alked'about building up to the edge of the wetlands, or whatever, and how you could do that, although it's not smart, whatever. How could you - would ten feet pass the riparian thing and knowing that on a piece of property, that may take it from here, to here, to here - ten feet - 20 feet as a minimum." Mike said, "I would go with 10 feet, but I would certainly - you got to remember also if your developing an ordinance, you don't want to make it an all exclusive, absolute, ordinance that no riparian area will ever be touched again in the Town of Avon,, period. No need to set yourself up for a law suit. You should have some kind of a permanent process that would protect riparian areas, and that you are going to stay out of riparian areas. However, you have to stay out of the riparian areas to the maximum (unable to transcribe - too soft of a voice). 10 0 The applicant has to demonstrate that other practical alternative other then And, sometimes they can. There really alternative considering cost and a lot • there is absolutely no filling those wetlands. is no other practical of other things." Mark asked, "So economics does come into play." Mike said, "Yes. We can deny a permit even if you can demonstrate no other practical alternative, if we feel'the wetlands is of significant high quality." C.C. said, "Maybe we could pick your brain a little bit too - putting - for public use paths or whatever, through this, if it is going to be - if the area next to the river - for Town and your thinking of, you know, the Colorado back to nature type thing and people would be able to go down and fish or picnic or whatever - we understand that you can kind of do what you want, if you don't turn a shovel." Mike said, "Right. We only regulate the discharge of (unable to transcribe). A lot of the trails people go to now are either soft surface trails or concrete asphalt trails (unable to transcribe) to intrusive in wetlands or riparian areas and are general purpose is now to get people out of wetlands, away from the stream. But on this particular project that we have out there, if someone wants to put in a walking trail, that they just go down and cut some vegetation - clear some vegetation - so they can - could form a discernable path, than that doesn't require a permit. You bring fill in to create a soft surface, that does require a permit." Mark asked, "I guess, for the point of clarification, if you allow willows to be cut on wetland area without a permit, than how do you define the wetlands, in a practical sense? Because if the willows help define the wetland area Mike said, "It's not just willows. We look at vegetation, materials, and hydrology; three perimeters." Mark said, "Let's assume that a wetlands area has been established and agreed upon. And, we want to throw this soft path through a wetlands area. And, what Mary has explained to us, is what you just said - we should be able to do that without a permit. From a practical matter, how can we - the Corps operates that way, because, what I would say is - well, if I wanted to be a real devious developer, I would go in there and I would cut all those willows." Mike said, "We have had problems like that before --people have tried that, but we can still call a wetland. It would very obvious to us, if you cut the willows. 11 r • We also look at the soils and the hydrology and we would say it is a wetland - it's a disturbed wetland- but it is still a wetland." Mark said, "We were pleasantly surprised that there would not be a rigorous permitting process to establish some kind of a soft path, so long as we didn't turn any dirt or as you say adding any filler - we don't change the contours." Mike said, "You can't - the easiest way to understand is you can't tip a bulldozer blade into the soil." Mark asked, "There can be a bulldozer on sight?" Mike said, "No there can't." Tom said, "So we should come in with some sort of a chip type material and establish a path." Mark said, "That would require a permit." Mary said, "You can't do anything but go in and weedwack." Mike said, "Now that sight there is enough room to stay out of the wetlands, for the most part." Mark asked, "For a building construction or pathway?" Mike said, "Pathway." C.C. said, "I'm concerned about..." Mike said, "I,mean even in the one area where we got two different wetlands got wider, you would have to either move the buildings back further away from the stream, to put a trail up there, or at that point run the trail up behind the buildings and in the parking lot." C.C. said, "So basically the physicalness of the sight and - you need to check it in the spring, before we should be giving out a permit for these buildings, and where they sit on the property right now?" Mike said, "Let me get this clear. We are not saying that they can't build until they get the wetland mark. There is no law that says you have to have a wetland line approved. That's true, and is what happens in most cases - in almost every local government I deal with - is the local government-says we are not going to give you final approval, until you get your approval from the Corps of Engineer." C.C. said, "Which we did." 12 • • Mike said, "That this'-line is correct. That's the way it normally works." C.C. said, "Okay. So we still - in this case because we did that. Right, Mary?" Mary said, "We're - it hasn't gone to planning and zoning for final approval yet, but that is what we are proposing as one of the conditions." C.C. said, "Yea. And the crucial part to this, is that the west end of it, I believe - having banks that the property gets narrow and narrow really concerns - about removing these banks. I mean - there is my concern - I don't think that we should be removing banks.- And, on the tour, they said, you know - it will be moved - we said, well, how deep - what are we talking about. Well, an average minimum and maximum is twelve feet. I'm thinking, my god, that's more - a floor that your going down, so it won't hit the configuration of - I guess at first, you think building on top, oh well, so what, because they're going to build you know' how close and whatever. When you're actually talking about removing this section, so you can build in there, that impacts me big time. I don't have good feelings about that, and I want to know if it is safe or not - how visionary wise - how it's going to impact - we can't let everybody - and even though they have pointed out to you, well most of your property in Avon is already predetermined with plans and permits and all this stuff - is given out anyway. We can't let everybody come along and remove this bank to sit there first floor in. That's uncomfortable." Mike said, "Not only that, a lot of the amenities of this Town is from the river and (not clear transcription - something about rafting the river)." Too many mumblings - unable to transcribe. C.C. said, "Is that from the old - that was from the old plan." Mike said, "That old plan had some of the stakes (unable to transcribe - too soft of a voice)." Too many people speaking at one time = unable to transcribe. Mark said, "The wetlands line was surveyed in by Inter-mountain Engineering. The building placement, with the orange sticks which you saw, Mike, Bill prepared himself. He got out there with a 100 feet tape." 13 Tom said, "I just can't be specific and I don't know how I could be playing it for both sides - per our discussion, I expressed some concern about the west end of that property in relation - in regards to the building and proximity of the western most buildings and the wetlands. And, I forget what the delineation was between - I guess I need a clarification on what the*actual wetlands determinations going to be, but even so it seemed the proximity was still awfully close at that western most end -'and I made a suggestion about shoving the buildings back up'- there was some discussion about what impact (unable to transcribe). If you were to try to put a path in there we'd probably have to shove the buildings back at the western end. Which means you'd lose that on the other side of the building (unable to transcribe)." Mark said,-"We dropped a couple of units in that one far western building, which was building A, and that was the one that was close to the wetlands or is right on it. And, I think by - dropping those two units and reconfiguring slightly, we'll be ten feet - is what we will try to work with." C,C. asked, "Ten feet back from riparian?" Mark said, "No from wetlands - what we're learning today - I don't know what we can do C.C. - I don't know if we can - we may have to walk away from the project, if we end up getting ten to- fifteen feet away from riparian area. Because I suspect that an argument could be made that 40% to 50% of that sight is riparian." C.C. said,. "I think so, too. There is service berries all up there. There is willows up there." Mike said "Wait a minute, the willows and the service berries up on the top of the bank is flat area and is not considered riparian." C.C. asked, "Because of the soil and hydrology?" Mike said, "This is probably produced by irrigation." Tom said, "I think this is going to be the whole crux of the issue - not so much for the wetlands, but the riparian. My question is, if the town is interested in trying to establish - even if we come up with a basic definition of - as you said, it almost has to be done on some sort of a permitting type basis - we can't disallow all. Who is it - who is the so called expert that the Town would look to, to establish what the impacts are on that case by case basis - would it be that we go out and hire a hydrologist, in order to establish what the impacts are going to be?"' 14 9 • Mike said, "(not clear transcription) in the river, by the river, close to the river, near riparian areas, you may want to end up looking at hydrologist to access those impacts. But, if you are talking about a case by case basis to finding where a riparian area is ? ? Tom said, "If the Town wishes to enforce, within its jurisdiction, it's going to have to come up with an over all definition of riparian. It goes back to these arbitrary -.so much from the height of your foot - that mean might be a little out moded when it says that in some areas to protect vegetation, riparian environments, maintain view corridors, all of those type of things within an area. So first off_, the Town needs to come up with a definition of riparian - sounds like there is many.out there. _In my own mind, I can establish different intrusion in to that - you do have some riparian environment that exists up above, on the banks, that comes down beside the banks - differences between-primary / secondary type of road on the primary, secondary bank. You know, it's a tough one to call and come up with definition. I guess basically the concern would be - from my point of view - one, you want to maintain an adequate corridor. I don't know what that would be. An adequate corridor in terms of one, preserved for riparian, all the related environmental aspects of that - of wild life, plant life - all. those type of things. Two, how much can you intrude in to that- riparian environment without degradating the actual - strain" river, whatever that may be. So I guess, that's my concern, as Mark was alluding to - this certain project, I would presume and - I don't have a definition of riparian, but from what I see from walking the property, that development as presented, it would be a major impact, be it in the small section of that river, but a major impact on the riparian environment. As I understand the definition of riparian." Mike said, (unable to transcribe = too soft of voice). "As long as you give us a good enough idea of where it is, wetland boundary, we would comment." Tom said, "But, this is wetland, not riparian." Mike said, "We can comment on riparian. We do have a say on what happens in riparian areas. Someone does need to comment - they don't.need a permit. (very difficult to transcribe - too soft a voice)." Too many people speaking at one time. Train going by and Mike speaking too softly. C.C. said, "I guess there is a bigger picture to this that I am sensitive to and whether'Avon's river corridor has been totally spoken for or not at this point and time. 15 I am really sensitive to the consistency along the whole Eagle River because it impacts quality of life. One example I want to give of that is a new group that is starting to meet with government and business leaders from our community, from our valley here. And, it is basically on what are some of the major issues and what can we - public / private - do about it because the public has been attempting it for a while and it is not working and they need the private push and so they asked and they did - we did surveys prior this organization forming and the- major issues confronting Eagle County - the most common responses - housing, second common responses - transportation / traffic congestion, the third most common response that we need to be' sensitive to is loss of river and view corridors. So, we know that'it'is high on the minds of the people of this community. And, my point of one of my concerns was that we-today sit here up and down our valley and not just pointing at our town and look at things and just say, you know, how did they every let them do X? Well, we as a they, perhaps in a little piece of the pie, right now, wearing this hat, and I don't want someone to.look back on us and say, you know, why did the Avon Town Council ever allow X? And, maybe set a good example - Avon has always been proactive - and set a good example for our County, too, and other municipalities to follow to do something that,is visionary for the future generations because some of these things we can't step back from it and undo it once they're done. And, so the research and everything right now is well worth it. I also have a question about the idea that I know the developers have hired an, expert to map their wetlands. Gee, how does that work? You know, here's where my check is coming from, I know what they are trying to do - I mean, I'm not putting the professional whatever, but I'm just wondering about it being screwed." Mike said, "That's why we're there." C.C. said, "O.K. then . . . I have no problem." Mike said, "The consultant that he hired is very good, very reputable." C.C. said, "Well, I know there professional within their own - you know " Mike said, "We know that some of them are not." C.C. said, "Oh." Mike said, "Some of them are not. But, the ones they have hired are very good. They make mistakes, honest mistakes. And, you should realize that. It is also not a black or white call. There is a big deal of professional judgement involved in setting that limit, whether its here, at that wall, or even further. 16 • • It is not black and white, like a 25 feet from the edge of the bank." Tom said, "So, in going through . . Mike said, "I could disagree with them on their wetland quality - it may not be they were planning to do anything - I would just disagree - I may move it down, closer to the river." Tom said, "But, in that process, on each and everyone of those_ you actually take the whole summer to investigate that?" Mike said, "The whole summer, oh no. That will be done in two hours." Too many people talking at one time = unable to transcribe. C.C. said, "I'd like - because we are about five minutes over time and sure appreciate you coming - I don't want to let anything go unturned since we have you here finally - and if there is any closing thought that somebody needs to get out? Go ahead." Steve with Land Designs asked, "C.C., planning and zoning specifically asked this question so I think we should ask it. And, that is the ability to plant and add plants to wetlands - is that even a possibility?" Mike said, "There is not a requirement for that." Too many talking at one time = unable to transcribe. Mike said, "Small shrubs, things like that, that would be OK. But, large trees, when you have to dig a fairly large hole, we would need to see some plans." Mark said, "C.C. this is my closing comment and I think this has been really helpful for me today. I have never set with someone like Mike and heard - the fact that this is not a black and, white science. But, about a year ago when we started, through the process, we raised a lot of awareness - I think when we went through with the Boulders, among other things. But, one of the goals and this is where I think Avon is taking a good lead in the responsibility of where you want to go with river front development - but some of the goals that we are dealing with out of your comprehensive plan are things like goal A4 capitalize on the Eagle River as a focal point for future development, emphasize the river corridor as a site for the development of recreational amenities and linkages. Promote the-'orientation of future development along the river corridor to the river as an access and amenity. That language is so broad, that you can go off in one direction or the other. 17 0 0 I think that because of the broad language in here - we know that this is a guiding document - it is not a regulatory document. But, you don't have a regulatory document, you don't have anything that is adopted that defines riparian- that defines wetlands or anything. So, we have gone back to Army Corps manuals and looked up definitions from 1892, big deal. I'd like to see us all work together to create some more finite focus on what these goals are all about because I can sit here and go on all day and all night about how we are meeting these goals and objectives - and Mike can sit here and say no you're not.-.you did this or you did that. So, I think we need detail here. And, I believe, that is what Mary has been searching for, in reviewing our-project, is that we all lack detail." C.C. said, "We are good to educating ourselves this way. And, as far as that comprehensive plan is - right now we are in the process of having it updated, and, so that is real good. And, then our guidelines - we always have to keep in mind that you have to put common sense into it and that those are minimums." Mark said, "I agree." Mike said, "There is one way to settle this - at least on this property - of what is the riparian area. You seem to have trouble with what is a riparian area on that specific project. on this primary / secondary bank let me know another word out instead of that. What we use quite often is first, second, and third flood plains. Basically where the stream.used to be and had abandoned it, come down into different turfs and it gets drier as you go up. But one of the ways to settle that would be to ask them to have their consultant delineate a riparian. Put that on the map and see what you have got." Mark said, "That is exactly what would happen - we would see what we have, because these same documents talk about being sensitive to the riparian areas and but, they don't say stay out of them. They don',t say stay so far away from them - they say be sensitive. It is not a no build zone, clearly. But, once we find out where the riparian areas are on the sight we're probably going to go into bitter shock. We probably have buildings in, riparian areas." Mike said, "I know you do." Mark said, "Maybe 74 units." Mike said, "They could at least quantify what-- I mean the way I understand it, this project has already been approved." C.C. asked, "Well, where are we exactly in that whole process for this project?" 18 ! i Mary said, "There is approval." C.C. asked, "For the first Boulders?" Mary said, "Right." C.C. said, "Which now we realize probably, could be, maybe, in some wetlands which would have never flown." Mike said, "They were always out of the wetlands - that was never an issue." Mark said, "Yea, that was never an issue." Bill said, "Now what they're doing is they are,coming back through with a different plan then what the Boulders-was and'you have an opportunity - again they are coming back through and you are modifying the PUD, so it has to go back through the same public hearing process. When they go back through the public hearing process, there are opportunities to make adjustments to their PUD plan to subtract from or add to their requirements. So, if you want to, you could require that they go ahead and define or delineate on a map what somebody believes to be the riparian area. That gives you some idea of what you are dealing with." Mike said, "Some wetlands are higher quality than other wetlands. There is a bill in congress right now to change our law to recognize high, medium, or low quality wetlands. And, low quality-wetlands you may not even need a-permit. We do that now, on a'case by case basis." Too many people speaking_at one time = unable to transcribe. C.C. said, "We should not bring in - if we go through mapping or whatever - should we or shouldn't we include - does it have any value -this first, second, and third floor terrace? Is that information we want to know? Because we are a terraced property?" Mike said, "I think it would be secondary information on the report." C.C. said, "I know we are over time, but it is such an opportunity that I want to make sure that anyone that is here - I know I don't want to abuse your time, you have a schedule to keep too. But, I guess at this point, that if there is nothing else, we really thank you for coming. This has been fantastic." 19 20 • Respectfully Submitted: Patty Neyh Town clerk AND Sharon R.-Sanchez-Medina-- Deputy Town Clerk