Recently received the following email from a city councilman

Friends,

Writing to alert you to a proposal for development of land in North Cedar.

If you go east from Center Street on Lone Tree Road, you will notice that you will dip down into a very low spot, where the road was underwater and so were many homes south of the road last year at this time.

Well, now a developer wishes to fill that area and build on it. That also happened to Jacklyn St. residents. They bought brand new homes there were built on filled ground in the very lowest possible points. They got 4 ft of water in the living rooms.

Planning and Zoning Commission will meet on Wednesday June 17 at 7 PM in City Hall to consider this application.

The reality is that when you fill in the places where water used to go, that water has to go somewhere else. It usually goes higher and floods the homes that did not used to get flooded before.

Unfortunately current city ordinances allow this outdated practice. Only your voice and sensibilities can change this foolishness. You can save so much headache and costs for future residents. It is one thing to discover past mistakes, but it is another to deliberately build new homes in the flood hazard areas.

To commemorate last year’s floods… there are lots of images on TV and newspapers these days. Floods, sandbagging, heroic rescues are great TV materials… but a group of people sitting in a room making bad decisions leading to the tragedy of flooded homes being built in flood areas are not on TV and few pay any attention to them!