By Cody Mello-Klein | cmelloklein@alextimes.com

City Council voted to defer an initial vote on city staff’s 10-year flood mitigation plan, which includes a 100% increase in the stormwater utility fee, during Tuesday’s legislative meeting.

Department of Transportation and Environmental Services staff came before council to recommend an initial reading of an ordinance that features an ambitious 10-year, $283.8 million flood mitigation plan, with the intent of docketing the item for a final vote during the Jan. 23 public hearing.

Instead, council voted to delay its initial vote on the ordinance until the Jan. 26 legislative meeting and a final vote until the Feb. 20 public hearing to allow for additional discussion between council and the community.

Staff’s recommended fee increase, which would raise the stormwater utility from $140 to $280, comes amid an ongoing community discussion around the city’s flood mitigation efforts and its response to a series of flooding events that have hit the city in recent years.

According to staff, 2020 was the seventh wettest year on record for the region. Flash flooding events took place on July 23, 2020 and Sept. 10, 2020, leaving some residents struggling to bail water out of rapidly-flooding basements, backyards and cars.

Residents have acknowledged the role of global warming in increasingly intense weather events but have laid the blame for the flooding largely at the city’s feet. They point to outdated, overwhelmed infrastructure as the reason neighborhoods including Parkfairfax, Rosemont and Del Ray have faced such intense flooding in recent years.

“That the city has failed in its fundamental responsibility to protect and preserve property, health and life is indisputable,” resident George Demetriades said. “After all, for more than a decade, the city has failed to clean and maintain the drains, even as they forecasted more frequent and heavier rains and the capacity issues we’re dealing with today.”

In his comments to council, Del Ray resident Marc Jarsulic explained that recent flooding in his neighborhood resulted in an overflowing storm drain near his house, which sent water cascading through his basement and created a sink hole in his backyard.

“The city’s only material response so far has been to place a large traffic cone in the sink hole in our back yard, perhaps as an acknowledgement of the risk to our children posed by a hole in the ground which has a jagged, rusted out iron grate at the bottom,” Jarsulic said.

He and his neighbors have already paid for thousands of dollars in repairs, Jarsulic said.

The plan proposed by staff is in response to council’s direction in November 2020 that the city pursue an “aggressive” flood mitigation strategy, Director of the Department of T&ES Yon Lambert said. The plan presented to council represents the findings and recommendations of an interdepartmental flood task force that conducted extensive community outreach and formulated solutions over a six-week period.

Staff’s plan involves a four pronged approach with budget, program, legislative and communication recommendations. The plan prioritizes 11 large-scale capacity projects, which were initially identified in the comprehensive City of Alexandria Storm Sewer Capacity Analysis. Designs for the first projects would be completed as early as 2022 and extend through 2031 and would take place alongside more localized spot improvement projects.

Residents expressed concerns that the plan focuses more on large-scale projects than addressing small-scale neighborhood issues.

“I urge all of you to remain dually focused not just on long-term solutions but developing and funding localized solutions even if they’re only temporary,” resident Catherine Finley said. “To focus solely on these longterm capacity enhancements will result in neighborhoods and homes flooding every year, possibly multiple times per year, while you raise resources and implement the projects.”

These smaller scale, less expensive projects are meant to address neighborhood-specific flooding issues and staff hopes these projects will address the community’s call for urgency, Lambert said.

“They complement the larger capacity projects,” Lambert said. “In some cases, they may be all that’s needed, but in other cases it’s going to need to be a combination of a localized improvement and a larger capacity project that need to work together in tandem.”

The fee increase itself is part of a more comprehensive budgetary solution to fund these projects.

The proposed plan would increase capacity project funding from $19 million for three projects in the current 10-year stormwater plan to $170 million over 10 years for 11 projects, according to Lambert. Spot project funding would also increase from $500,000 per year, enough for three to five projects, to $2.5 million per year, enough for eight to 11 projects.

Stream and channel maintenance funding would increase from $500,000 per year to $900,000 per year, and state of good repair funding would increase from $1 million per year to $2.5 million per year. Staff also proposed a new pilot grant program that would require $750,000 per year, according to the staff presentation.

Lambert pointed out that the previous plan prioritized the city’s state-mandated clean water quality initiatives – the previous plan dedicated $51 million to water quality and $19 million to capacity projects. The proposed plan would shift the funding balance toward capacity projects, reducing water quality funding to $17 million and increasing quantity project funding to $170 million over 10 years.

“This approach is a dramatic reshuffling of how we would be approaching [those projects],” Lambert said.

Thirteen residents spoke at Tuesday night’s legislative meeting, with the majority commenting on the proposed fee increase and flood mitigation plan. Most speakers did not contest the need for a fee increase but criticized the city’s use of the fee in the past.

“I’ll pay the additional fee as long as it doesn’t go into the same system that didn’t give us a fair share of the first fee,” Sheriff Dana Lawhorne said.

“I’m willing to help pay for it – I’m impacted daily – but I do want to feel assured that a large increase in fees will be spent appropriately,” Jim Burkhart, a resident who spent Christmas Eve alleviating flooding near his property, said.

Councilor John Chapman remained concerned that staff had not effectively communicated with residents how the increased stormwater would be used and how it has been used in the past, which has led to tensions and general lack of trust around the process.

Chapman proposed a draft resolution that would create a citizen advisory group with the stated goal of providing oversight around recommended fees and stormwater plans.

“I think we do need an established advisory committee to keep a laser like focus on flooding,” Chapman said.

The majority of council expressed support for Chapman’s resolution and his desire to delay a vote on the plan until such a group has been established and more community outreach and council discussion has been conducted.

Councilor Amy Jackson made a motion, seconded by Councilor Mo Seifeldein, to defer first reading of the ordinance and Chapman’s resolution until the Jan. 26 legislative meeting to allow for further council consideration. Final consideration would be scheduled for the Feb. 20 public hearing, ahead of budget discussion on the stormwater plan.

Mayor Justin Wilson urged council to provide City Manager Mark Jinks with direction regarding the fee cost and consider deferring a decision until the budget public hearing in March so that there is more time for public input and the city manager can operate with knowledge of council’s decision going into his budget calculations.

Jackson’s motion ultimately passed 6-1, with Wilson the sole vote in opposition. In delaying the vote, council did not mandate that staff conduct additional public input sessions, but staff will move forward with several already scheduled community outreach efforts.