Norman council discusses storm water, greenbelts
Master plans accepted to reduce flooding, improve drainage

BY JAMES S. TYREE Comments 0
Published: November 12, 2009

NORMAN — Norman residents and the city council spent more than two hours Tuesday talking about a topic on which every single speaker agreed — the city’s need for a comprehensive storm water master plan.

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"I’ll pay the $7 on my utility bill; I’ll do it and so would everyone on my block. This is not an issue where it floods every five years, it’s an issue where it floods every time we get a half inch."
Jim Seifried

After the talk subsided just before 11 p.m., the council voted 9-0 to accept the information and maps contained in the storm water master plan and the related greenway master plan, which city staff and council members will use to chart the future courses of the respective plans.

Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan Inc. submitted the storm water reports; Halff Associates turned in the greenway plan.

Public Works Director Shawn O’Leary said the storm water master plan, expected to cost $83 million over 20 years to implement, is needed to reduce flooding by improving drainage throughout the city, and to ensure the quantity and quality of Norman’s water supply.

Attila Balazs, who works at a free-trade coffee shop, said the goals help everyone. He told the council about a day the city’s water tasted bad even with his store’s two-stage water filters.

"We could have lost customers,” he said, "so this does affect business, and this affects me because I drink water.”

City Manager Steve Lewis emphasized three points to the large audience, for which about 40 extra chairs were brought into the council chambers and at least another 20 chairs were set up outside the glass wall. He said that the resolution to accept the plans:

• Does not dictate how residents will pay for the storm water project,

• Will not enact any new regulations, and

• Will require no additional acquisition of land.

The city may charge residential and commercial property owners a storm water fee based on the area of impervious materials — hard paving and structures that create runoff instead of natural seepage into the ground — in addition to a utility for all residents.

Most who spoke Tuesday at the meeting said the idea was fair, but some Norman Chamber of Commerce members and others said it wasn’t. Cindy Nashert read a resolution on behalf of the chamber that asked the council to acknowledge receipt of the study, but not to accept or adopt it to allow more resident and business input.

"The storm water utility fee would place unequal burden on many business owners, churches, institutions, industries, property owners associations and developers who in total have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with city ordinances to build and maintain detention pools since 1982,” the chamber’s resolution stated in part.

A few speakers worried that accepting the plan would give the green light to city staff to spend money and make rules regarding storm water drainage, saying the city has a history of that.

Lewis and Mayor Cindy Rosenthal insisted that would not happen; that only the council can pass ordinances.

The most passionate plea for acceptance came from Jim Seifried, who lives at Lancaster and McGee Drive, an area he said floods with any significant rain.

"I’ll pay the $7 on my utility bill; I’ll do it and so would everyone on my block,” he said. "This is not an issue where it floods every five years, it’s an issue where it floods every time we get a half inch.”