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Sunday, September 11, 2011

Ind. Gov't. - "Clark drainage board to revisit ordinance"

Braden Lammers reported yesterday in the Jeffersonville News & Tribune:

The Clark County Drainage Board may amend a policy concerning drainage plans for builders.

Several issues have been raised by John and Charlotte Nicholson, who live adjacent to Forrest Hills Subdivision, the most recent being that a retention basin that handles the drainage of the subdivision is undersized.

“I think it’s not unreasonable for the board to ask the developer to provide us with an as-built drawing of that so [we] can verify that it is sized according to the plan,” said Clark County Surveyor David Blankenbeker, referring to the retention basin. “What we don’t know, was it built according to plan? The plans might show it one way, but built another.”

Drainage Board Engineer Brian Dixon also presented an issue brought before the board by Billy Hughes, of Henryville, that concerned drainage construction by a builder.

A catch basin near Hughes’ home is collapsing, and a drainage pipe attached to the catch basin may be causing his home to flood. The issue involving the builder is that the pipe was not properly placed in an easement where the county could address the problem. Dixon said county can address the catch basin, but cannot address the drainage pipe because it is on private property.

Greg Fifer, attorney for the drainage board, explained that the board often does not have jurisdiction over drainage issues, because they are often on private property and therefore limited to the purview of the individual property owners.

Blankenbeker suggested amending the drainage ordinance to have the developers provide the as-built plans — which are approved by the Clark County Building, Planning and Zoning Commission — to ensure when construction is completed that what was built matches the approved plan.

“Now that building is very slow, it might be a good time to kind of get some plan together to implement that,” said Drainage Board President Les Young.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 11, 2011 07:37 PM
Posted to Indiana Government