Wetland Permit Application Letter. Executed.pdf

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March 19, 2024
CHARLOTTE REGULATORY FIELD OFFICE
US Army Corps of Engineers
8430 University Executive Park Drive, Suite 615
Charlotte, North Carolina 28262
Attn: Krystynka Stygar
RE: SAW 2021-01186 — Doolittle Farms
Mooresville, Iredell County
Ms. Stygar-
The purpose of this letter is to request a permit modification for the Doolittle Farms Nationwide Permit
29; the action id number is SAW 2021-01186. Logan Farms Development Partners, LLC, the current
owner, has directed its engineers and consultants to prepare the attached documentation in support of
the modification in order to accurately account for impacts associated with the development. We
acquired the project from DR Horton in 2022 and in late 2023 it became clear that there were deficiencies
in the design and permitting of the proposed road crossing. Our hope is that you can work with our team
to expeditiously complete the necessary paperwork for the modifications or reissuance so that the
permitted work can be completed safely with the least amount of disruption.
The permit modifications are necessary due to a failure to fully understand regulatory, technical, and
economic constraints when the permit application was filed. Below is a narrative of the situation and
attached is a copy of a revised permit application that fully accounts for impacts at the site.
Per the attached approved permit and permit drawings the original design proposed 80 linear feet of pipe
and +/- 30 foot tall walls (See Attachment A). The issued permitted was based on drawings that showed
impacts below the established mitigation threshold of 0.02 acres. This design did not take into
consideration that the Town of Mooresville regulations require that geogrid associated with road
construction be outside of the dedicated right of way and it did not take into technical consideration that
the walls would require footers (See Attachment A, page 7 of 11). The stated rationale for the Town
prohibiting geogrid in the right of way has to do with maintaining traffic circulation in the event of any
long-term wall maintenance or utility work that requires any excavation — simply stated any work on the
wall or utilities would necessitate lane closures that is not acceptable based on traffic circulation
expectations. The failure to include footers in this situation is compounded by the fact that there is no
rock at this location and the wall is tall — the design did not include even the simplest of footers.
Engineered footers, had they had been considered during the permitting of the crossing, would have
dramatically increase the impacts to streams and compounded the economic impact of this crossing.
Engineering calculations for the wall would have required that footers extend approximately 15 feet
upstream and downstream of the proposed crossing since the walls approached 30 feet tall and
the thickness of the poured in place walls would approach 4 feet. But these design efforts would
not resolve the geogrid conflicts within the right of way.
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DocuSign Envelope ID: 484D60F4-24CE-4228-B4B6-33E78720397F
Widening the crossing to honor the Town's requirement to eliminate geogrid from the right of way
increased the minimum crossing width to 144 linear feet. Town requirements include among other
things side walks and separation for pedestrians. The current proposed crossing results in 136
linear feet of pipe and 8 linear feet of footers which totals 0.42 acres of stream impact. The
attached drawings (Attachment B) show the crossing in detail including all pertinent geogrid
considerations and pipe headwalls. The attached PCN (Attachment C) enumerates the impacts and
corrects the ownership entity.
Our request for the modification comes after approximately two and a half months of inhouse
review and work with our team. Numerous crossing strategies were considered during the process
and the current drawings (Attachment B) achieve the best fit for our organization.
We have conducted an economic assessment of the construction costs (Attachment D) that
supports the crossing from an economic perspective — the assessment includes construction costs
and estimated mitigation costs. The cost of stream mitigation off sets the costs of constructing
large concrete intensive retaining walls. The analysis includes three options: Original Pricing is for
the structure that was previously permitted but that does not meet local approval requirements.
Option 1 is a variant of the Original Pricing design using 8 more feet of pipe to achieve design
requirements and 30 foot tall walls and footers that extend 15 feet upstream and downstream of
the pipe; the total impact is +/-120 linear feet. Option 2 is the selected alternative that utilizes
lower walls and 144 linear feet of pipe without footers extending upstream and downstream of the
pipe.
Wetlands and Waters has assessed the stream quality according to state protocol and have
determined that the stream quality is medium to low at the impact area due to the lack of riparian
buffers and the existence of an existing road crossing. The assessment (Attachment E) supports a
mitigation ratio of 1.5:1 for the proposed impacts.
Please feel free to reach out to Chris Huysman at Wetlands and Waters if you have any questions
regarding this request. Thanks for your time and do not hesitate to contact me directly if you need
my assistance.
Best regards,
David Hughes
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