Starkville’s stormwater hearing committee tabled an ordinance relief request from Dan Moreland Friday, but final approval from the group is unlikely after members said his Louisville Street development is projected to increase water discharge in the area.
Moreland is seeking relief from a required detention pond — one of many waivers sought by the former Starkville Parks Commissioner and Republican mayoral candidate — mandated by city ordinance as he plans to build ministorage units, a recreational vehicle storage building and six RV pads on 4.23 acres adjacent to Louisville Street.
Members tabled the request since Moreland’s plan awaits variance requests from other city boards. The Starkville Board of Adjustments and Appeals will decide July 1 whether to grant the project a waiver from a paving requirement mandated by city code, and the board of aldermen could take up an appeal July 7.
Moreland’s plan currently calls for crushed limestone in the parking areas. Paving the front parking lot in a material more impervious to water could increase runoff amounts. A city report states the Louisville Street ditch is capable of “conveying the additional stormwater … if no mitigation is provided” but asks the board to “consider the precedent” created by approving the variance.
The stormwater board may grant variances under four conditions, including situations where exceptional hardships are created without a waiver and where a variance would not result in increase in runoff greater than 10 percent.
A detention pond was included in Pritchard Engineering’s original project design, but Moreland now seeks a waiver from the requirement after the firm wrote a letter to the city stating runoff discharges into an existing swale, which then empties into an established ditch on Mississippi Department of Transportation right of way.
The city’s report deemed the requirement not to be a hardship since engineers previously showed in their designs that the detention pond could be installed on the property.
“What we’re seeing is the best-case scenario in terms of what we’ll see with stormwater. Even with gravel which is more porous than what is actually standard, we’re still at a 30 percent increase versus that of the standard that’s 10 percent in the ordinance,” said newly elected board Chairman Jeremiah Dumas. “I don’t believe it’s an exceptional hardship… There’s nothing in terms of finding of fact to suggest it can’t fit on the site or there’s adequate room to handle.”
SHB member Claudette Jones suggested Moreland augment his plan and install a detention pond in order to save an older tree on the property, but the developer said the redesign would cut into future expansion potential.
“I have seen how … people can be impacted by runoff. It doesn’t take very long for that to happen, so I have a concern about not having some sort of holding situation (for stormwater),” she said.
Moreland’s property — what used to be the site of the former Shriner’s Club — is adjacent to residential parcels. The Starkville Planning and Zoning Commission previously mandated a 30-foot landscaping buffer between the conflicting commercial and residential zones, a move rubber-stamped by aldermen in January, but city leaders flipped on the issue Tuesday and reduced the buffer to 10 feet.
In that meeting, Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker said residents might not want a ministorage unit next to their homes without the ordinance-mandated buffer, but Ward 2 Alderman Lisa Wynn, who represents the area in question, said her constituents support Moreland’s development.
Moreland was gaveled down three separate times Tuesday by Mayor Parker Wiseman after singling out Walker’s opposition to the project. It was Walker who pulled the item from consent agenda and forced discussions on the matter.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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