Erin Nelson
Water rushes through the Mountain Brook Club on Old Leeds Road on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021.
The Mountain Brook City Council approved a resolution between the city and Schoel Engineering Company for the study and preliminary design of up-basin drainage in the area near Mountain Brook Junior High School.
At its regular meeting on June 27, the council continued its consideration of a study that Schoel delivered in May. The study aimed to find potential ways to improve stormwater infrastructure to prevent flooding events like the one experienced on May 4, 2021, when flash flooding inflicted costly damage to the interior and exterior of homes on Richmar Drive and Mountain Lane. The 6-inch rain that fell on June 8, 2022 proved to be another example of this deleterious flash flood behavior, said City Manager Sam Gaston.
“A lot of rain fell in a short period of time,” Gaston said. “Thankfully we aren’t talking about catastrophic flooding but about water in basements, washed out landscaping, and flooded garages and yards.”
Although residents of these streets have invested significant amounts of money into protecting their properties from flooding, the underlying issue remains: inadequate infrastructure to handle the increasing volume of water that enters the area upstream of the Mountain Brook Junior High retention pond from higher elevation areas.
Schoel plans to obtain topography in the Hillsdale Road/Richmar intersection and in the vicinity of “The Cut,” run model simulations to examine up-basin drainage, develop a preliminary design for drainage improvements to likely include a replacement for the pipe draining “The Cut,” and develop final design of drainage infrastructure on Montevallo Lane, which would be incorporated into the construction plans at Mountain Brook Junior High.
In other business, the council:
- Approved an ordinance for an Interlocal Agreement between Mountain Brook and Birmingham for the The World Games.The city will provide four police officers and police vehicles for the event July 7-17.
- Approved to reduce the speed limit on Surrey Road and upper Canterbury Road from 25 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour. These streets are narrower than other streets with a 25 mph speed limit, and residents expressed concern for the safety of the children living in the area.
- Discussed ideas for replacement or repair of weathered and damaged awnings in commercial areas. An existing ordinance for signs will be used as a model for a new ordinance covering awnings with no logos or words. "We want to always have a clean, consistent, refreshing look throughout the Villages,” said Mayor Welch.
- Forgave the loan between the City and Mountain Brook Sports Park Foundation for the public improvements at Rathmell Sports Park.
- Awarded the bid for five 2021 Dodge Charger Police Pursuit Vehicles to Stivers Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep & Ram in the amount of $153,215.75.
- In August of 2021, the city purchased the property at 116 Hillsdale Road for $915,000. As the property abuts Mountain Brook Junior High, it was bought to consider using this property for a detention pond. The Council said the real property is no longer needed and approved the sale of the property under contract for $997,152.
- Approved a recommendation of Steven Boone, Assistant City Manager/Finance Director, to raise the threshold for the City’s purchase orders from $1,000 to $3,000. The threshold was previously set in 2012. “This will ease administrative burden and streamline the process of routine requests,” said Boone.
The next city council meeting is scheduled for July 11 at 7 p.m.
