Rockingham County is proposing that a Stormwater Control Authority be created in the area shown above in blue.
Learn more here.
A public hearing was held on July 17, 2019 and it drew quite a crows (70+ people) and lead to several hours of discussion. At the end of the meeting, the Board of Supervisors decided that they needed to spend more time looking into the comments and concerns raised by local residents. The Board tabled the resolution that would have created the authority, and it is not clear when any next steps will be taken.
It seems that much of the concern and discussion was related to how to pay for the needed upgrades to the stormwater system. I don't think anyone questions that those upgrades are needed. Here is an excerpt from a July 18, 2019 article in the Daily News Record,
Stormwater Authority Tabled...
Many of the concerns looming during the hearing were how to fund capital costs.
Preliminary estimates of capital costs were stated to be $3.16 million, but it is a rough estimate, according to County Attorney Thomas Miller. The amount of capital costs will depend on numerous factors that have not been determined by the board of the authority after consultation with engineers.
Assistant County Administrator Casey Armstrong said the estimate does not include state and/or federal funding that may be available in the future.
Lisa Perry, the environmental manager for the county, said during a work session in April that there were different ways the county could go about allocating funding, such as grant funding, the Virginia Department of Transportation revenue sharing or funding from the county's general fund, which the committee recommended.
No determination has been made concerning when and how fees will be assessed, but fees will likely be related to the amount of impervious area on each property, according to the county's website.
For further context, the County's website (linked above) explains that...
- This proposal is a result of the urban flooding that has occurred in these areas for several years, causing frequent property and structure damage. County staff has collaborated with engineering consultants and a citizen stormwater committee and they have concluded that the stormwater infrastructure in this area must be upgraded -- in both capacity and function.
- You can use the GIS (turn on the "Lake Shenandoah Stormwater Control Authority" layer under "Hydrological Features") to see if your property is located in this area -- or access this list of affected properties.
- Fees would potentially be assessed to each property within this area, though what those fees would be as well as when and how they would be assessed has not yet been determined. (The public notice of the public hearing does reference that the preliminary estimate of capital costs would be $3,169,200.)
- Specific plans of what types of improvements to the stormwater infrastructure would be made, and where they would be made, has not yet been determined.
- For further reading, download the Lake Shenandoah Watershed Master Plan from November 2013.
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