#13 - Landscaping Requirements Top Soil

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1 STAFF REPORT DATE: 3/21/2023 REGULAR MOTION TO: City Council FROM: Sophia Jensen, City Planner AGENDA ITEM: Landscaping Standards Text Amendments – Topsoil Requirements REVIWED BY: Sarah Evenson - HKGi Landscape Architect Jack Griffin – City Engineer Jenni Faulkner – Planning Consultant John Taylor – Building Official BACKGROUND: For many years the City of Lake Elmo has been struggling with water supply issues and discussing topsoil requirements. On April 8th 2022 the City Council enacted a 1-year development moratorium on the South East quadrant of the City due to water supply concerns. The City has initiated creative solutions to reduce the water demand such as enforcing lawn irrigation/watering restrictions and amending City Code to allow possible Planned Unit Development bonus density for developments that utilize stormwater reuse. Due to the water demand struggles Lake Elmo is on the cutting edge of water conservation efforts. Ensuring developments have high quality topsoil on their sites is key in reducing irrigation demands and increasing the vitality of lawn and plantings. The City of Lake Elmo has initiated a text amendment to the landscaping requirements ordinance to ensure a consistent amount of high quality topsoil is to be placed under seed or sod after construction. The City currently has some topsoil language in the engineer standards manual for developers. Staff has reviewed how other Cities enact and enforce topsoil requirements. The City of St Louis Park uses in depth engineer standards, the City of Woodbury uses language in their development agreement, and the City of Victoria uses Carver County requirements which requires a topsoil management plan. Many of these regulations only place responsibility on the developer of the project. Staff has noted the importance of putting this requirement in City Code to place responsibility on both the developer and the builder to ensure topsoil requirements are followed from start to finish of a project. The developer would be responsible for a topsoil preservation plan when they submit their landscape plan. They are required to make the topsoil compliant with the modified MN DOT Spec 3877 and have enough to cover the site with 4 inches. The builder’s responsibility comes into play when they submit the building permit. They must show stockpile location, erosion controls on their plan submittals and have final confirmation/testing that the quality and depth of soil is still up to the standards before a full Certificate of Occupancy (CO) is issued. If approved by City Council, this new requirement would start with all new plats/projects and associated building permits after the ordinance is adopted since the builder and developer essentially need to work together to manage the topsoil. This would not apply to building permits or plats/projects that already received preliminary plat approval.