Legalectric

Recently the City of Northfield took up complaints from residents about flooding, and is in the process of “assessment,” and is looking at “mitigation.” This popped up on my screen today and caught my attention:

City Council considers funding infrastructure upgrades to flooded residences

And this part in particular:

Here’s the packet from the March 1 planning meeting:

Couple of issues:

FIRST: Mitigation of water issues is NOT something new, this was an issue when the City platted the “Presidential” subdivision of townhouses decades ago, where they eliminated a large part of Grant Park, which was supposed to have been deeded over with a prior subdivision development, and the developer planned to put townhouses over a drainage swale! The City approved that bright idea!

The green line going into Grant Park is the swale, and the Presidential Drive and Constitution Drive, the plan was to stick houses on the north end of that “U.” All the houses along Spruce Drive to the north would be affected. Thankfully Russ Matson, whose house is on the eastern side there, objected and we raised hell, and SUCCESS (sort of). The City and Developer nixed the plan to put townhouses there.

You can see the water drainage pathway from the northwest into that Grant Park pond:

Looking at the multiple locations in the “assessment” map above, this may be a systemic drainage problem, and it may be a systemic platting problem associated with trying to cram in as many homes as possible in places where perhaps they shouldn’t be! Much of the east side of Northfield where the pool is was a swamp. Other areas too? Is the City taking this into consideration, particularly with the weather extremes we’re experiencing?