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How to deal with reverse setbacks, the distance the city allows development to encroach upon an existing well site, is probably the most difficult question facing the city council as we amend our gas well ordinance. And for good reasons. It is arguably the very issue that triggered what would ultimately result in a city-wide vote to ban fracking in Denton.
I’m uncomfortable with something as low as 225-250 foot reverse setbacks. And I think there are good reasons for others to be uncomfortable with this even if they are convinced that there are no health and safety implications at that distance. This could simply be situated in the context of quality of life and orderly development. It’s the very reason we have zoning to separate wildly incompatible uses. And it is very clear that petrochemical extraction operations are incompatible with neighborhoods.
Having said that, I’m also uncomfortable with remedying this situation on the backs of surface owners. Solving the problems with one industry by placing greater restrictions on an unrelated industry does not seem to be fair or good public policy.
I’m thinking out loud here…
What if we turned this entire question around and put the onus of the reverse setback on the backs of the gas operators. You want to put in a new site or have an existing site where you’d like to drill more wells and your site is in a residentially-zoned area? In addition to defining your operating site boundaries, why not require a mandatory 500 foot buffer surrounding the defined operating site as part of the approval process. And in order to demonstrate this buffer, the gas operator would have to either own or lease perpetually the land contained in the 500 foot buffer zone.
This would force the gas operator to negotiate an agreement with the surface owners of all adjacent properties contained within this 500 foot buffer. The surface owners are compensated on their terms and are free to develop the remaining part of their property without giving up a fair and just revenue for the portion of their land that is reckoned undevelopable by its close proximity to oil and gas operations. Further, the property tax burden for this undevelopable land is placed where it should be – on the very industry who created this situation.
The trick would be how to deal with existing sites where no new gas operating activity has triggered the new 500 foot buffer rule and a surface owner wants to begin developing the surrounding property. This might be handled with an aggressive and attractive incentive policy that encourages gas operators to declare existing sites where no new gas development will occur. In those instances, the 500 foot buffer requirement could be relaxed, with the guarantee that operations on that site remain status quo. Then a 250 foot reverse setback to these sites could become more palatable. It’s a twist on a reverse setback variance procedure that puts the responsibility on the back of the gas operator, not the surface developer.
Thoughts?
