Some in Virginia Beach are OK with tax increase to fix drainage problems. Others are getting creative.
When formal budget discussions begin, the
Princess Anne Plaza residents are "willing to cooperate and do our part to support the actions" the city needs to take to address neighborhood flooding, said
"We're all willing to work with anything they can give us right now," he said. "You can't put a Band-Aid on something like this. I don't care if there's a tax increase, as long as it's put toward this."
Woods said using tax revenue that was collected for light rail would be a good way to start paying for stormwater improvements. After that, the city could continue allocating portions of the real estate tax to that instead of light rail.
In December, budget staff discussed using
In addition to finding money for the projects, the civic league wants the city to maintain a schedule for canal dredging and regular maintenance of stormwater drains and basins, as well as putting elevated generators at all city pump stations and researching and applying for federal grants to pay for the projects.
The city is already doing most of those things, said stormwater engineer
Elevating generators at pump stations is a reasonable idea, Mundy said. City staff also considers grants when looking at funding, but federal agencies often need a lot of information before awarding money. That may mean the city still needs to fund initial studies or small projects before a larger project could compete for a grant, Mundy said.
At a community meeting a week after the storm, frustrated residents pressed city officials to find money to fix drainage problems at a community meeting a week after the storm. Several
Once approved by the Princess Anne Plaza civic league, the petition will go to the
The city has known neighborhoods needed drainage work beyond regular maintenance since the mid-1980s, according to past budgets. It's not clear what neighborhoods were prioritized at that time. Right now, that fund is supporting projects on
Since 1990, the city has completed more than
In 2013, a project to address drainage issues in
In the wake of Hurricane Matthew, though, city officials realized several other neighborhoods needed drainage projects. In all, the city has about half a billion dollars worth of unfunded stormwater projects.
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