Windsor Woods residents will petition the city to find money for drainage projects

Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)

March 15--VIRGINIA BEACH -- Some residents flooded by Hurricane Matthew are tired of hearing about drainage improvements and want to see them get started.

The Princess Anne Plaza Civic League, which includes Windsor Woods and Bow Creek, is drafting a petition that calls for prioritizing neighborhood drainage projects. They presented it at a league meeting Tuesday night, hours after city staff said there's no room in the budget for the $180 million worth of neighborhood drainage projects needed after Matthew in five hardest-hit areas.

When formal budget discussions begin, the City Council could pitch ideas to fund those projects.

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 Virginia Wasserberg, who co-chairs the civic league's flooding committee.

William Jennings, co-chair of the flooding committee, said the petition is to show that residents are willing to help the city find ways to fund the projects. That could mean having residents find or help apply for grants or helping organize larger efforts, like a special lottery.

Rick Woods is vice-chair of the committee and said he just wants to see something done quickly. His home has $73,000 worth of damage from Hurricane Matthew.

"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 $7.3 million of that money for drainage projects. The council said it could be revisited during the budget process this spring.

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 Mike Mundy. Six dredging projects in Princess Anne Plaza are scheduled to begin in the next six months, he said, and the city is working to get pipes on an eight-year maintenance schedule instead of a 20- to 30-year schedule. That isn't perfect, Mundy said, and it would be challenging to establish a shorter schedule.

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.

Windsor Woods was one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the city when Hurricane Matthew skirted Hampton Roads in early October. More than 250 homes in the neighborhood flooded during the storm and 85 percent of those homes didn't have flood insurance.

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 Virginia Beach officials, including city manager Dave Hansen, said the pipes in the neighborhood can't handle the amount of water dumped by major storms. Hansen also promised residents he would include the Windsor Woods project in his proposed budget this year.

Once approved by the Princess Anne Plaza civic league, the petition will go to the Virginia Beach Council of Civic Organizations, which represents all leagues in the city. That way, the petition will be on behalf of all residents of Virginia Beach, Wasserberg said.

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 24th Street and in Thalia, Mundy said.

Since 1990, the city has completed more than $67 million worth of stormwater projects in Windsor Woods paid for outside of the neighborhood fund.

In 2013, a project to address drainage issues in Windsor Woods was created. The cost and timeline of the project changed each year it was included in the budget, but consistently had a 2014 start date. The completion date has ranged from 2022 to 2025.

Windsor Woods' drainage improvements will cost $31.1 million. Improvements in Princess Anne Plaza, which includes the Bow Creek area, has a $66 million price tag. Both projects include building pump stations and tidal gates, and making pipe improvements.

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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