From traditional to outside-the-box thinking:
What to do about flooding in West U
By George Boehme
Hurricane Harvey devastated the
Houston region but wreaked com-paratively
little havoc on the city of
West University Place — 102 homes out of
about 6,000 suffered flood damage. Sixty of
those homes were confined to a small area
bound by Carnegie Street, Poor Farm Ditch,
Bellaire Boulevard and Vanderbilt Street,
and 86 of the 102 flood-damaged homes
were built prior to 2000.
Today’s development standards, which re-quire
construction two feet above the base
flood elevation, would have kept all those
homes from flooding. So is future home
flooding in West University Place really
that compelling a problem? City leaders are
examining how to get damage down to zero.
About half the city is currently built to the
adopted design goal, or standard, of being
able to withstand a two-year storm event, a
confusing term which means it has a 1 in 2
or 50 percent chance of happening in any
year. By comparison, a “500-year storm
event” has a 1 in 500, or .02 percent chance
of happening in any given year. Simple
enough until you learn that West University
Place has experienced six 500-year storm
events in the last 20 years, and one of them
was Hurricane Harvey. (We can leave the
discussion on climate change for another
day.)
So the adopted design standard for West
University Place is for a two-year storm
event, and the city is 50 percent of the way
there. An oversimplification of a two-year
storm event is at least 5.11 inches of rain
in a day; a 100-year storm event would be
more than 14.9 inches.
The City Council is considering additional
drainage improvements to complete the
two-year storm event standard for the
entire city, estimated to cost between $60-
$80 million. Each council tries to attack the
flooding issue but learns quickly how many
moving parts are involved, many not under
municipal control.
A completed plan would require about 160
acre/feet of flood detention located outside
West U, and there is not any excess flood
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detention available for purchase. One pos-sibility
would be to complete the improve-ments
now but acknowledge that the new
improvements would not be fully functional
until the flood detention is acquired some-time
in the future.
Another more outside-the-box-thinking
idea would be to offer to buy the 102 homes
damaged in Hurricane Harvey for their fair
market value. Most are older homes, so
the value would average $1 million or less.
The city would spend about $100 million to
buy all the flooded houses, then tear them
all down and remarket the lots to anyone
who wants to build a new home under the
current development standards.
Figuring the average lot price at about
$750,000, $75 million would be recap-tured.
The flood-prone houses would be
replaced with flood-resistant housing — and
the taxpayers would spend $25 million
instead of $60-$80 million. Certainly worth
a look
The issue
that keeps
on buzzing
The City Council has
been discussing new
restrictions on urban
honey beekeeping in
our backyards since
July. After discus-sion
at a few council
meetings and a town
hall meeting in coun-cil
chambers, the
council had an urban
beekeeping presenta-tion
on Oct. 14.
There is a cynical
adage on the efficien-cy
of government
that says the time
spent on an issue in
normally inversely
proportional to that
issue’s actual impor-tance.
I am not so
cynical as to believe
the adage, but on the urban beekeeping
issue, it does seem to apply.
Interest in the issue of the municipal regu-lation,
or prohibition, of urban honey bee-hives
was prompted by a complaint from a
resident about a neighbor’s honey beehive
that was close to their shared property line.
The resident believes urban beehives are a
public nuisance and should be prohibited
anywhere in West University Place. The
West University Place Code currently per-mits
beekeepers without any restrictions.
It is estimated there are currently more
than 40 homes in West University Place
that produce honey for personal consump-tion
in their backyards. This is the first time
any one at City Hall can recall any of them
being challenged.
The complaining neighbor submitted a
proposed ordinance for consideration at
the June 24 meeting of the City Council
that would have effectively prohibited C