Public works director Lowell Patterson told city officials this weekend at the city’s annual retreat that the process taken in creating regulations is almost more important than the final result.

"The process we follow will be the most important decision we make," Patterson said. "It impacts everyone in the community; we don’t want to jump in without understanding the consequences of what we’re doing."

EPA phase II guidelines will require Columbia to develop a storm-water management program that includes developing a public education and outreach program, encouraging public involvement, detecting and eliminating illicit discharge, controlling construction site runoff, controlling post-construction runoff and preventing pollution.

The city has hired Jim Davis of the University of Missouri-Columbia and Thomas Schueler of the Maryland Center for Watershed Protection to work on the technical aspects of developing storm-water guidelines, including identifying sensitive watersheds and determining how to best control the volume and quality of runoff.

Patterson said the post-construction runoff element would be most controversial, and recent council decisions have proved that. As the city council has attempted to require developers to be accountable for the storm water that runs off their new developments, it has run into opposition.

At the center of the debate is the idea that impervious surfaces - concrete, roofs and nonpermeable areas - cause an increase in storm-water runoff, which could cause a decline in the quality of storm water. Patterson said while the percent of impervious surface can be debated, the concept is sound.

"There is a direct correlation between impervious area and stream quality," he said.

The next question is how to deal with this fact. Most plans call for detention basins to hold and slowly release storm water, thereby mitigating the volume of water that runs off but not addressing the quality.

Realtor and Fifth Ward councilman John John said that there are places in a watershed where creating regional detention basins makes sense, but any plan that requires every single development to create detention systems is not practical.

"You’re not only creating sprawl but creating more impervious surface," John said. He said that by limiting the developable area of a tract, you cause people to buy more land and build more roads to get there.

Impervious surface is one factor the council has been considering when they approve rezonings and site plans. The council has limited two developments in the Little Bonne Femme watershed in south Columbia to 30 percent impervious surface.

The latest project, a residential care facility on Bearfield Road, will actually have 40 percent impervious surface. But the developer will preserve 8.75 adjacent acres in the watershed, thereby causing the total impervious surface to be under 30 percent.

Patterson said many groups in the city have a stake in the regulations and everyone should be involved.