The Woodlake City Council approved the map of Lakeview Estates, a new subdivision that will be built on an old ditch giving residents some concerns over new flooding
WOODLAKE – After many residents experienced extreme flooding in their homes this year, Woodlake residents voiced their concerns about the newest housing development at the March 27 city council meeting.
Lakeview Estates is Woodlake’s newest project, and will include nine parcels for single family homes in the area. This project, however, includes filling the Olive Lane Ditch that runs through the property. This raised concern for some residents due to the most recent flooding that some neighborhoods in Woodlake experienced. However, city manager Ramon Lara assured that there would be underground storm drains that will eventually flow into their future storm water basin. The proposed subdivision is located along East Lakeview Avenue between Olive Lane and Pomegranate Street.
“Is there any caution by the county or by Woodlake about this ditch you’re going to cover with any issues of flooding?” Residents Joshua Diaz said in the meeting. “What could be some discrepancies to give the future residents closure that this will be safe?”
City engineer Monique Mello said that though they would be filling in the ditch, approximately 1,100 linear feet of 18 inch stormwater pipe would be undergrounded along Olive Lane. This would then connect to the existing stormwater pipe at Lakeview Avenue and at Woodlake City Park. The basin that this water would flow into is still in the works to be constructed, and will be up to 40 acres, with room to expand.
“In the past, we’ve dumped everything into Bravo Lake and it’s just not efficient. But it’s taking years of environmental design to get to this point, we’ve actually awarded the initial phase of this project,” Lara said.
The city will hire an engineer to evaluate the water coming through that ditch, and will then switch to the underground drainage system within the city. There will also be inlets installed to keep the area from flooding. If the area is in a floodplain, the city would also do a hydraulic model analysis to prevent any flooding hazards and ensure all stormwater is underground.
The city creates hydraulic models for analysis using a hydraulic engineering center’s river analysis system. It is a software used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it determines if the development would affect the floodplain. The city recently did a similar analysis to their Hillside Estates subdivision, and found their flood zone was outdated.
Lara said that a large reason as to why this project was set in motion was to clean up the lots at Olive Lane. They are overgrown and are not entirely fixated with streetlights, curbs, sidewalks and gutters. However, this project will remedy that. The lot sizes at the new subdivision will include six 5,000 square feet lots and three lots 7,400 or more.
