Lakeshore Estates residents concerned road will collapse after storm drainage

Residents of the Lakeshore Estate Subdivision asked the Lytle City Council to help solve some drainage problems on their city streets and erosion of the roads at their regular council meeting on Monday, June 14, 2021. Council asked the citizens in return to help them get right of entry agreements from property owners for an engineer to do the necessary storm water drainage analysis and cost proposal.
Several citizens voiced their concerns over the flooding of yards, homes, and the erosion of a road that they believe will collapse if nothing is done.
The area of concern is also part of BMA and Medina County. “We have a meeting set up for this Wednesday, June 16 with Brian Sullivan of BMA and Public Works Director James Graff ,” said Mayor Ruben Gonzalez, who disclosed up front that he is a resident of the subdivision.
The flooding and drainage issues go way back and were brought up back in 2011 but when residents didn’t follow through with permission to access their property the project was at a standstill.
City Attorney Tom Cate explained, “We sent out letters to each of the property owners to ask for permission to access their private property in January of 2011 to do a storm drainage analysis and report. The engineers need this access as they cannot go onto private property without permission”. None of the agreements were returned to the City. City Secretary Josie Campa agreed that he was correct, none had been returned.
“We need to do the comprehensive study. You can address one area without considering the other areas and you just create more problems.”
The city will need to get a cost on the engineering study as the last one was 10 years old. Meanwhile the residents at the meeting promised to help get the agreements to their neighbors and encourage them to participate.
The 2011 letter from TRC to the city pointed out the following:
Area 1- Northwest Section of Subdivision
The large cultivated land northwest of the subdivision drains into the subdivision. This large amount of runoff in combination with runoff from the subdivision has caused lots within the subdivision to become inundated with storm water during heavy rain events. Factors related to the issue include the BMA canal, storm water runoff canal, discharge piping from the storm water canal, on-site lake and the three culvert pipes under Lake Shore Drive Street to drain a portion of the runoff from the cultivated land directly into the lake.
Area 2- Northeast Section of Subdivision
The yards of the residences near the intersection of Lake Breeze Drive and Lake Wind Drive have been inundated with storm water from runoff that develops north and east of this intersection.
In order to proceed the City will need to acquire right-of-entry agreements from private landowners for the purpose of accessing property for topographical surveying.
The engineering firm at the time in 2011 was TRC, in preparing for the proposal and associated costs, were going to provide the following services: 1. Provide field topographical surveying as needed for the drainage analysis. 2. Determine the capacity of the existing storm drainage infrastructure. 3. Perform runoff calculations for pre-selected storm events (5-,10-,25-, and 100 year events). 4. Provide multiple solutions or options, if applicable. 5. Provide opinion of probable construction cost for each option. 6. Determine means and/or methods to phase the project over three to four phases. 7. Investigate any potential funding opportunities for the project. 8. Produce a draft study and provide hard copies to the City Council and staff members for review and comment. 9. Reflect acceptable changes from the draft review in conjunct with City Staff agreement and produce final study. 10. Make a formal presentation to the Lytle City Council discussing the results of the analysis. 11. TRC will provide all digital files, including MS Word documents, GIS data, Power Point presentations, and all graphics to the City of Lytle for incorporation into the City’s system on one CD.
By Kathleen Calame
Publisher