When the public hearing on a proposed change to the city of Starkville’s stormwater ordinance ended Tuesday without a single dissenting speaker, it appeared to be clear sailing for the plans which called for new developments to provide stormwater mitigation to withstand a 100-year storm event.
That lasted all of about 10 minutes.
The subject re-emerged when Memphis-based developer Henry Minor appeared before the board later in the meeting seeking preliminary plat approval for his planned subdivision on South Montgomery south of the intersection of Lynn Lane.
Under the current ordinance, developments must be able mitigate storm-water runoff to accommodate a 10-year weather event, which is defined as a rainfall of six inches over a 24-hour period, according to city engineer Edward Kemp.
On Tuesday, Clyde Pritchard, who is doing the engineering work for Minor’s planned subdivision, told aldermen the project features a retention pond capable of mitigation stormwater runoff for a 20-year storm, but would not meet the 100-year requirement being proposed in the new ordinance.
A 100-year storm event is defined as 9.4 inches of rain over 24 hours.
Minor told the aldermen that if he was required to mitigate a 100-year storm, he would lose two units of the planned 79-unit development.
Because the project currently complies with the existing ordinance, the board approved the preliminary plat plans, but the question now lingers: Have the requirements of the proposed change to the ordinance gone too far?
“It’s hard to say what the board is thinking right now,” Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty said Wednesday. “There will probably be some people on the board who think maybe we ought to compromise and make it a 20-year or 50-year requirement. Nobody on the board is against development, and I’m not, either. At the same time, we all realize we have to do something about the stormwater situation we have now.”
For his part, Beatty believes the city would be better off sticking with the proposed change to a 100-year mitigation.
“One thing I noticed in Mr. Kemp’s presentation is the chart he had of what 12 other cities in the state required,” Beatty said. “With the exception of two or three, all of them had the 100-year requirement, so it would not be like we were going out on a limb. We need to look at this closely and listen to our consultants, but I don’t want us to compromise and have issues down the road. In five or six years, I’d hate to have to look people in the eye whose homes were flooded because we didn’t do all we could to prevent it.”
Beatty said he fears the board may reluctant to stick with the 100-year requirement if they receive considerable push-back from developers.
“I think that for half of our board, anything that comes out of the ground over here is pretty much considered good,” Beatty said. “Starkville has been starved for development for so long: It’s like we can’t get enough of it.”
Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker said he wouldn’t rule out a change to a less than 100-year requirement, but feels it’s too early to move in that direction.
“I do think the ordinance needs to be strengthened,” Walker said Wednesday. “Does that mean a 100-year requirement? Does it mean a 50-year requirement? Something else? We’ve only had one public hearing on this, so there’s going to be a lot more discussion, which is a good thing. We need to make an informed discussion and what happened Tuesday was a good way to get the discussion started. With that said, I’m not positive that a 100-year requirement is the way to go. I just don’t have enough information, but I think all of us on the board want to hear more and keep an open mind about it.”
Kevin Stafford, engineer for the city of Columbus, understands the difficulty of what Starkville is proposing.
“A lot of places are going to a 50-year or 100-year (requirement),” said Stafford, noting Columbus has the same 10-year requirement that is in the current Starkville ordinance.
“I understand the politics of it,” he said. “You want to do what’s best for the community, but you could get push back from developers because it does affect their bottom line.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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