The Region of Central Coast has enacted a Stormwater Ordinance in order to establish minimum stormwater management requirements and controls to protect and safeguard the general health, safety, and welfare of the public residing in watersheds within this jurisdiction. The Region of Central Coast is the permitting authority for all land disturbing activities and requires the land owner to maintain all on-site stormwater control facilities and all open space areas (e.g. parks or “green” areas) required by the approved stormwater control plan. The Region of Central Coast will only provide construction permits to projects that establish a plan to manage stormwater runoff occurring during the construction process. The Region of Central Coast, under the NPDES program, also has the authority to inspect properties for noncompliance and can issue a notice of violation (NOV) for any deficiency or infraction onsite. Property owners are responsible for the maintenance of any stormwater facilities or practices located on the property. The Region of Central Coast has the authority to inspect stormwater facilities and practices in order to ascertain that they are properly maintained and functioning.
The primary objective of these Post-Construction Stormwater Management Requirements (hereinafter, Post-Construction Requirements) is to ensure that the Permittee is reducing pollutant discharges to the Maximum Extent Practicable and preventing stormwater discharges from causing or contributing to a violation of receiving water quality standards in all applicable development projects that require approvals and/or permits issued under the Permittee’s planning, building, or other comparable authority. The Post-Construction Requirements emphasize protecting and, where degraded, restoring key watershed processes to create and sustain linkages between hydrology, channel geomorphology, and biological health necessary for healthy watersheds. Maintenance and restoration of watershed processes impacted by stormwater management is necessary to protect water quality and beneficial uses.
The management of stormwater runoff from sites after the construction phase is vital to controlling the impacts of development on water quality. The increase in impervious surfaces such as rooftops, roads, parking lots, and sidewalks due to land development can have a detrimental effect on aquatic systems post construction. Runoff from impervious areas can contain a variety of pollutants that are detrimental to water quality, including sediment, nutrients, heavy metals, pathogenic bacteria, and petroleum hydrocarbons. High levels of impervious cover can result in stream warming and loss of aquatic biodiversity in urban areas. Imperviousness limits both shallow groundwater movement and recharge of underlying groundwater basins. Impervious surfaces also reduce the supply of natural, beneficial sediment and organic matter to receiving waters.
The main goal of post-construction stormwater management is to prevent or limit these effects. This goal is best pursued by setting performance standards for new and redevelopment projects to ensure the projects integrate measures into their design and construction that protect, or to the extent feasible restore, the natural processes that support healthy aquatic systems. Over time, parcel-based requirements reduce the cumulative impacts of development at the watershed scale.
These Post-Construction Stormwater Management Requirements for Development Projects in the Central Coast Region (Post-Construction Requirements) establish the specific performance criteria and related implementation measures that municipalities will use to implement postconstruction stormwater management actions. As with many other aspects of urban stormwater management (e.g., illicit discharge detection and elimination, construction management, public education and outreach), municipalities possess the authority to implement post-construction stormwater management actions to prevent impacts from urban runoff. Through implementation of these Post-Construction Requirements, municipalities will ensure that the new and redevelopment projects they approve integrate measures into their design and construction to protect, or to the extent feasible restore, the processes supporting healthy aquatic systems throughout the life of the project.
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