Cedar Rapids contends with builders on proposed topsoil rule aimed to prevent flooding

CEDAR RAPIDS — City officials are squaring off here with builders and developers over how much a new homeowner should expect to pay for a yard with healthy soil that can dependably grow grass and retain water from most rains.

Those officials this week acknowledged that a top layer of healthy soil could add $1,000 to $1,500 to a new home's cost. Developers and builders, who are working to come up with their own numbers, told the City Council's Infrastructure Committee the cost would be much steeper.

City Council member Scott Olson, chairman of the committee who was just re-elected, agreed to put off any decision about the proposed topsoil rule until January to give a group of builders and developers time to analyze it.

'But we need a deadline,' Olson said.

Drew Retz, vice president of operations for Jerry's Homes in Cedar Rapids and past president of the Iowa Home Builders Association, told the committee that it was easy to adopt a new city rule 'with other people's money' — money from those buying new homes.

No wonder, he said, that Marion is seeing as much homebuilding in a year as Cedar Rapids, which is three to four times as large.

'Why don't people want to live in Cedar Rapids?' Retz asked, suggesting regulations are the reason.

Olson said the city hoped to see other cities in the area adopt a new topsoil rule like Cedar Rapids may.

At the same time, Jon Durst, the city's sewer superintendent, said that in addition to any extra cost a new homebuyer faces are the costs the city and its taxpayers face when lawns with poor soil don't hold back rainwater, allowing runoff to overwhelm sewers.

Durst said 'a pinch of prevention' in upfront costs to a homebuyer could provide 'a pound of cure' so new homeowners don't have to pay to repeatedly rework yards to try to get grass to grow long after the developer has gone.

This fight to try to shape a city topsoil rule comes some 16 months after a major flash flood overwhelmed the stormwater sewer system, damaging dozens of homes and washing a teenager to his death in a storm sewer.

Durst said proponents of improved stormwater management feel they lost out when he said the state's Environmental Protection Commission this summer acceded to the wishes of builders and developers who had argued that the state's so-called 4-inch topsoil rule was too hard to enforce and added too much to the price of a new house.

Durst said the commission's decision to modify the state 4-inch rule made it unenforceable because developers and builders now need only to abide by it if it is 'technologically possible or economically practicable.'

The commission, though, let cities devises local rules,

At this week's council committee meeting, with both development and stormwater management advocates on hand, it was clear that the issues fought out at the state level now will be debated at the city level.

Durst said the city policy is better defined as a 'top layer' policy rather than a topsoil policy because it offers eight options, such as adding amendments such as compost and sand to a yard.

The policy first calls for developers and builders to retain and redistribute any topsoil on a building site. They then can choose from one of the soil management methods as spelled out in the Iowa Stormwater Management Manual to enhance the site, the policy states.

Builder/developer Jim Sattler said much of the new homebuilding in Cedar Rapids is taking place on the edge of the city where stormwater practices such as detention basins are required to hold back runoff.

He said the new topsoil rule won't do anything to help older neighborhoods built before detention basins became a requirement and where most of the damage from runoff occurs.

Public Works Director Jen Winter said the city doesn't want to use just one stormwater management practice or the other but wants to use both and others.

Carol Teater, a member of the city's Stormwater Commission and director of programs for Trees Forever, said the proposed topsoil rule is attractive because of the 'flexibility' built into it.

Teater said the city is asking farmers in the watershed above Cedar Rapids to improve the way they handle storm runoff, and 'it's only right' that Cedar Rapids residents contribute, she said.

Council member Ralph Russell said it was important for him to know what builders and developers think the costs of the rule will be.

He said, too, that the topsoil issue is 'one small piece' of flood protection, and he said the city also is putting together a master plan to begin fixes to its sewer system.