Last Minute Changes Weaken Hellbranch Zoning

In a Surprise Move, Columbus Officials Ditch Open Space Provision, Shrink Flood Plain Protection

For months Darby stakeholders had been anxiously monitoring Columbus’s effort to draft "protective standards" for the eastern half of the Hellbranch watershed. And for good reason. Everyone knew that what came out of this process would determine the shape and scope of that city’s developments in the environmentally critical watershed.

Despite some reservations, many Darby supporters were guardedly optimistic that the city was moving, however slowly, in the direction of significant environmental protection. This made it all the more stunning when Columbus recently announced, without consultation with environmental groups, that it was abandoning several of its key reforms.

The city’s most drastic move was to drop an open space requirement from its proposed zoning overlay. In previous drafts, Columbus had boasted that it would require 40 percent of each parcel to be kept in open space. In DCA’s view this was a starting point, but hardly sufficient (picture 60 percent of the watershed in housing). But that debate is now moot, as the city will now require no special provisions for open space at all, other than a streamside buffer. This means that the city will allow a 90 percent build-out of a critical 10,000-acre region adjacent to Hellbranch and Clover-Groff.

Why is this so worrisome? Because scientific analyses of urban streams point to impervious surfaces—streets, roofs, parking lots, and other hard surfaces associated with development— as the best predictor of negative impacts. These studies suggest that once the amount of impervious surface in a watershed reaches 10 percent a stream will begin a steady process of decline. Under Columbus’s proposal, impervious surfaces in the eastern half of the Hellbranch will be in the neighborhood of 30 percent.

The city’s stance is particularly frustrating because DCA has alerted officials to research by the Ohio EPA linking urban land use and declines in the ability of streams to meet that agency's water quality standards.

Though many Darby stakeholders have thanked Columbus for its efforts to lessen the effects of development, to date ODNR, Franklin Soil and Water, The Nature Conservancy, and the Friends of Hellbranch have all criticized the density of urbanization allowed in the overlay.

Columbus counters that its buffer and stormwater provisions are some of the most restrictive in the nation, and promises they will mitigate the effects of impervious surfaces. But this bold claim is based on wishful thinking, not scientific research. City officials are simply guessing, or, as DCA president Terry Stewart puts it, "they are experimenting with the Darby." Darby is too valuable to be gambled with in this way, especially when existing research suggests the gamble has failed everywhere else.

Open space was not the only casualty of the city’s revisions. In previous drafts, the city had proposed a streamside buffer that was, at minimum, the 100-year flood plain. This was in keeping with advice from environmental groups, scientists, government agencies, and other sources that a natural flood plain is key to maintaining clean water and natural water flows.

But the city removed the flood plain provision in its final draft, substituting instead an arbitrary calculation for the size of the buffer. Although the inclusion of a buffer is an important step, the overlay’s provisions do not conform to the natural buffer—the flood plain—meaning that further encroachment on the stream’s natural flow pattern will be inevitable. The zoning would also allow for filling of the flood plain as long as this is "mitigated" elsewhere in the watershed.

The overlay also allows for the treatment of stormwater in the 100-year floodplain, despite recommendations against this from DCA, ODNR, and others. Columbus has been criticized in the past for building retention ponds in the flood plain, where contaminants or sediments that have filtered out of stormwater will be flushed into the creek system by floods.

Columbus must take seriously the fact that the problem of inappropriately sited and poorly designed urbanization in Hellbranch is not new. Past EPA assessments have cited land development, suburbanization, urban runoff, and construction among the primary sources of impairment. Moreover, after preliminary results of last year's EPA assessment showed further declines in the biologic performance of Hellbranch and its tributaries, ODNR issued a letter warning that the condition of Hellbranch has gotten so poor that it is now threatening Big Darby Creek itself. Much of Hellbranch and its tributaries are not meeting water quality standards mandated by the Clean Water Act. DCA urged Columbus to take this into account, but to no avail.

DCA believes the city's failure to develop an effective strategy for the Hellbranch is the result of a rush to piece together a plan in the face of pressure from developers. Under pressure, the administration decided to substitute zoning for planning. In so doing, the city essentially decided in advance that every property in the zoning area is appropriate for development.

In contrast, virtually every organization and agency with an interest in Darby recommended that Columbus pursue a regional planning process. This process should seek a scientifically accepted land use plan for communities in western Franklin County. This would allow responsible growth to coexist with a healthy Darby ecosystem.

We realize that watershed planning requires a major commitment on the part of Columbus; but only with Columbus’s strong leadership will truly nonintrusive development be possible.

Ironically, Columbus itself has proposed a more cautious approach elsewhere in the watershed. It has advocated setting aside the remainder of the Hellbranch watershed as an Environmentally Sensitive Development Area (ESDA). Under the city's proposed language, the ESDA "stipulates that no sewer

service be extended in the area until a multi-jurisdictional, multi-stakeholder advisory planning process yields its recommendations and environmentally protective conditions are in place." DCA supports this concept, but believes it is nonsensical to declare part of the watershed to be "environmentally sensitive" and part of it not. The ESDA should include the whole watershed.

There is no hurry to develop into the Darby watershed. The complexities of the problem, and the existing trends in water quality, suggest that caution is the sensible approach. Future generations of central Ohioans will be grateful if we have the foresight to value environmental prosperity over short term economic gains.