Hutch City Council to consider assessments for levee improvements outside city

Aug. 14--Hutchinson City Council will consider an ordinance passing on the cost of improvements to a flood control levee outside the city to the owners of properties protected by the levee.

Levee C generally protects the area between the Arkansas River and Cow Creek west of the city and diversion canal.

If the ordinance passes after a public hearing, a $920.15 assessment will be applied to 377 of the 398 properties in the area. The city will pick up the cost of the remaining 21, which are still considered in the floodplain because of areas where rainwater that falls within the protected area pools with no way to escape.

Property owners would have the option to pay the assessment as a lump sum or have it financed for 10 years at a cost of about $100 a year.

History

In 2007, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began updating flood hazard maps, Brian Clennan, director of Public Works said Friday. That left levee owners, like the city, needing to have their levees certified in order to have the land they protect considered out of the floodplain.

Being out of a floodplain is important because properties in a floodplain generally need costly flood insurance to get a mortgage.

In 2008, Hutchinson partnered with Reno County, South Hutchinson and Willowbrook to have levees evaluated. That evaluation showed Levee C needed improvements that would cost an estimated $700,000 to be certified. Reno County chose not to fund improvements to Levee C, which is outside the city.

In 2012, property owners in the area protected by Levee C began organizing. In March 2013 they met with city officials to discuss having improvements made, and in April 2013 a petition was submitted to the city, asking for improvements to be made to the levee. The petition was signed by the owners of 272 out of 398 properties in the area, or 68 percent, Director of Finance Frank Edwards said.

The city bid the project in 2014, and improvements were made, including raising about 140 linear feet of the levee near K-61 by 6 to 12 inches and excavating 5,600 linear feet of soil and replacing it with drainage soil, mostly along the diversion canal, Clennan said.

The total project cost came out to $366,220, a little over half of the $700,000 estimate the city used while property owners were petitioning the city to do the project.

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