Re-ordering/Re-arranging Ordinance Articles
Filed in Permit Application and Review Process |
How much value is there in re-ordering and re-arranging the various Articles of the Ordinance? In 1992 when the ordinance was new the most immediate questions were “How does administration of this thing work?” and “Will projects be “grandfathered” from this ordinance and reviewed/approved under the previous stormwater management ordinances?” The answer to the first question has been with us for a while now and while the update to the ordinance may tweak some aspects, it is hardly new. The answer to the second question has yet to be widely discussed, and may be much less of an issue this time around. Arguably, those two questions dominate the text in 5 of the first 8 articles of our current Ordinance. We don’t really begin to specify submittal requirements until Article 11, 56-pages into the text. On the positive side, those who work in the Engineering/Legal/Development field in DuPage County frequently have gotten used to this system, and any sort of wholesale change in layout and format could cause concern for any number of reasons. Should we work within the current Ordinance Text format and divisions, or look at a re-ordering? If reordering, who should the primary target audience be?
Wednesday, October 21st 2009 at 8:28 am |
Thought I would try this and see how it works.
The issue is is the ordianance user friendly? Is it easy to find things? It may be easy for the county staff to use but hard for customers seeking guidance that are not familiar with the ordinance. This issue brings up a larger question that is are we just tweaking things or are we going to reinvent things or something in between. I think we need to reorder things to the extent necessary to make the ordinance user friendly. I am not sure that it is user friendly now. The administrative process needs to be folded into the ordinanance or added as an appendix. Review deaadlines need to be locked into hard dates that must be met. The time element is critical to any public or private project. We are adding a new redevelopment section. THis will be difficult. Many of the future submittals are likely to be in that category. So reordering seems to be useful but difficult.
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009 at 9:27 am |
I agree with these comments.
Wednesday, November 18th 2009 at 10:42 am |
Remove the reply “I agree with these comments” Ihis was entered thjis to resolve problems I was having with reading the first messages I got at Bob’s request.
Monday, October 26th 2009 at 10:01 am |
Yes, the ordinance needs to be reorganized. It is not user-friendly. Anyone who doesn’t use it every day will find their eyes glazed over long before they get to page 57 to find what they need to know. Move all the administrative sections to the back of the ordinance. Write section headings that make it easier to find the things that infrequent users need to know–floodplain requirements, wetland requirements, tabular submittal requirements, sediment and erosion control, development size and requirements, requirements for property that is not developing, etc. The primary target audience should be those who don’t use the ordinance daily–developers, homeowners doing small projects, new consultants.
Reorganizing will be a challenge, though. Many requirements apply to more than one type of project, so if you organize by project type, then you end up repeating a lot. Suggestion: Organize by project, but for the sections that apply to more than one type of project, put that information in a later section and include it by reference in the “project type” section.
Friday, October 30th 2009 at 4:21 pm |
I agree that the questions and concerns in 1992 are different than those of today so the Ordinance could be reorganized to put requirements up front for ease of use. And as we move forward and potentially add/change/revise regulations, the organization will need to be discussed further to accommodate revisions. But I think it’s important that the Ordinance remains a technical document as the target audience should be the design professional. After all, many parts of the Ordinance require a technical submittal depending on the “development impact”. In other parts of society we don’t allow just anybody to design and perform technical work, as a certain base of knowledge and experience is required, and the Stormwater Ordinance shouldn’t be any different.
In my opinion locking hard review deadline time frames into the Ordinance is problematic. The review time frame issue is a decision that each political body needs to ponder while striking a balance between the turn around times and the cost. Each public body should be free to set their own review deadlines as a matter of public policy. Recently, several communities have become complete waiver communities in part so they could control their own review process. They made the conscious decision to take on the cost of the complete review process in order to balance the desires of their community.