The primary purposes of this Chapter are to protect life, limb and property, to promote and enhance the general public welfare and a superior community environment, and insofar as it is economically feasible, to ensure the maximum possible preservation of the natural scenic character of major portions of the City, by establishing minimum standards and requirements relating to land grading, excavations and fills, and procedures by which these standards and requirements may be enforced. It is intended that this Chapter be administered with the foregoing purposes in mind and with a view to:
(a) 
Ensuring that future development of lands, particularly in the hilly areas of the City, occurs in the manner most compatible with surrounding areas and so as to have the least adverse effect upon other persons or lands, or upon the general public.
(b) 
Ensuring that soil will not be stripped and removed from lands in the more scenic parts of the City, leaving the same barren, unsightly, unproductive, and the hazards of subsidence and faulty drainage.
(c) 
Ensuring the regulation of grading private property in order to control erosion, control sedimentation and to protect the water quality of water courses, water bodies and wetlands.
(d) 
Encouraging the planning, design and development of building sites in such fashion as to provide the maximum in safety and human enjoyment, while adapting development to and taking advantage of the best use of the natural terrain.
(e) 
Encouraging and directing special attention toward retaining, insofar as practical, the natural planting and a maximum number of existing trees.
(Ord. 242 Div. 2 (part), 1986)
(a) 
This Chapter sets forth rules and regulations to control excavation, grading, and earthwork construction, including fills or embankments; establishes the administrative procedure for issuance of permits; and provides for approval of plans and inspection of grading construction.
(b) 
The provisions of this Chapter are supplementary and in addition to the zoning and subdivision regulations of the City, and shall be read and construed in connection with and as an integrated part of the zoning and subdivision chapters and the patterns of land development control established thereby.
(c) 
In the event of conflict between this Chapter and adopted Chapter 70 of the Uniform Building Code entitled "Excavation and Grading," this Chapter shall take precedence.
(Ord. 242 Div. 2 (part), 1986)
It shall be unlawful for any person to:
(a) 
Perform any work within the scope of this Chapter without first having obtained a permit from the Public Works Department pursuant to this Chapter.
(b) 
Grade in such a manner so as to:
(1) 
Cause erosion or sedimentation on other property or on public streets;
(2) 
Obstruct or otherwise interfere with drainage, or deposit sediment in natural or artificial drainage facilities; or
(3) 
Construct or alter drainage facilities or alter drainage courses without first obtaining a grading permit pursuant to Section 7-2.303 of this Chapter.
(Ord. 242 Div. 2 (part), 1986)
The Public Works Department is hereby designated as the City department responsible for the administration of this Chapter.
(Ord. 242 Div. 2 (part), 1986)
This Chapter shall be known as the "Hercules Grading Ordinance."
(Ord. 242 Div. 2 (part), 1986)