Algood Passes Ordinances To Help With Flooding Concerns

Algood made changes Tuesday night to city ordinances to address flooding concerns.

The city passed ordinances for drainage, storm water and driveways. City Administrator Keith Morrison said too often developers have been adding to the city’s storm water problems.

“The biggest change in this policy is that it moved the drainage improvements to the beginning of the project, instead of the end,” Morrison said. “Because one of the things we’re seeing is a lot of the construction projects as they’re being built have a lot of runoff during construction.”

Morrison said this adds a layer of protection to surrounding property owners who are affected by runoff. Morrison said that driveways will no longer be allowed to disperse water into the roads.

“So they have to have some sort of channelization or catch basin that catches the water running off the driveway and filters it into a ditch or runoff, away from the street,” Morrison said. “So we’re trying to keep some of that water off of the road because we get that complaint a lot.”

Morrison said these ordinance changes will facilitate responsible growth in Algood. He said changes should address the concerns residents have about new construction and apartments being built.

“We’re trying to do it smart and keep it under control and make sure the effects it has on the neighbors are minimal and it doesn’t upset their life,” Morrison said. “To have this (development) come in and then all of a sudden it’s flooding them over and over and over. So it just gives us tighter controls in better places to be able to look at that and say yeah this is going to work or no, it’s not going to work.”

Morrison said that tighter control will extend to approval of water detention approval.

Morrison said that previously developers were able to get approval from either he, public works or the building inspector. However, he said that now he has final approval on water detention but will still do his own consultation in-house, before giving the final approval.