Feedback given on drainage project

FAYETTEVILLE — Residents attended the first in-person public input session the city has hosted in months Thursday to discuss street and drainage improvements for Rolling Hills Drive.

City planners and engineers took questions and resident feedback, with stations set up a safe distance apart featuring the planned work ahead.

Rolling Hills Drive and its surrounding neighborhoods will have about $8.5 million in bond money put to drainage and street improvements.

Drainage improvements will consist of $5 million worth of work in the area of Missouri Creek. The area generally is bounded by Township Street to the south, Old Wire and Old Missouri roads to the east, and Sherwood Lane and Oaks Manor Drive to the west. The basin extends north where Missouri Creek enters Mud Creek, north of Brookhaven Drive.

Resident John Squire said he wanted to find out more about the project and how it could affect his home.

Squire purchased a home in the neighborhood about three years ago. At the time, it was not a part of the flood plain, he said. That changed a few months after Squire moved in, when the city sent him a letter saying the flood plain map was being revised.

“I’m thinking, ‘Holy jeez, I didn’t need this. I didn’t expect this,’” Squire said.

The water doesn’t enter Squire’s yard when it floods, but it does make it to the wooden fence that separates the yard from the creek, he said. Squire thinks the fence helps divert the water from actually making it into his yard.

“This stuff all takes time, and we all think that our piece is the most important piece, but recognizing that there are people looking at the bigger picture — that’s important,” Squire said.

The conversations gave the engineers an opportunity to find out about aspects of the land they may not have known about otherwise, especially flooding points or conditions underground, said Jeff Webb with Garver Engineering, the firm behind the project.

Resident Vince Delgado said he’s no stranger to flooding. His yard floods every time it rains hard for more than an hour, he said.

“I just would like to have something done so that we don’t have to worry every time it rains if our house is going to be flooded,” Delgado said.

Delgado has lived in the area for around 18 years, but he thinks the flooding started around 10 years ago after culverts were added two streets up from where he lives, he said.

The drainage system in the area is often inadequate, old and not properly designed, City Engineer Chris Brown said. Meeting with the public helps city staff pick up on any problems they might have missed, he said.

Ironing out the first phase of work and finishing final designs have to be completed next before getting contractors to do the work, Brown said.