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Broadway condominium residents urge Falls Church to study stormwater impacts of nearby redevelopment
Summary
Residents of 502 West Broad Street (Broadway condominiums) told city staff they are experiencing frequent flooding and urged the city to study whether recent and proposed redevelopment (T-zone) has been evaluated for downstream impacts on stormwater and sanitary-sewer capacity.
Several residents raised localized stormwater and sanitary-sewer concerns at the Falls Church budget town hall, saying redevelopment and grading on nearby parcels is worsening flooding in the Broadway area.
A resident identifying their building as 502 West Broad Street (the Broadway condominium) described the site’s location at the confluence of multiple drainage flows and said the building “empties into that already overloaded system.” The resident said a nearby redevelopment site was being graded to a “50 to 100 year storm” standard and argued that the developer had not analyzed where stormwater would go after it left the site. “I would like to see the city include in its budget funds to actually study what are the impacts of t zone,” the resident said, referring to missing-middle rezoning proposals.
City Manager Wyatt Shields responded that the city has performed extensive stormwater analysis in recent years — including pipe inspection, Army Corps and engineering studies following the July 2019 floods — and that staff maintains modeling and a prioritized set of stormwater projects. He said the city has been administering roughly $21,000,000 of stormwater projects appropriated earlier and that the city prioritized the most frequent property-damage locations for the “big six” stormwater projects, naming Hillwood and the Trammell Branch project as recent examples. Shields also said the Greening of Lincoln project will reduce flows toward Broadway’s watershed in time but acknowledged that major, rare storms can still overwhelm the entire system.
Council member Laura Downs sought a numerical clarification and Shields provided it: the proposed stormwater fee increase in the budget would be about $7 annually for the average homeowner, and the sanitary-sewer fee increase would be about $14 annually. Shields said stormwater and sanitary sewer fees have been annually adjusted roughly by CPI over the last five years to avoid large rate shocks.
The resident asked the city to study the cumulative effects of zoned redevelopment on downstream sewer and stormwater capacity and asked the council to consider funding such an analysis as part of budgeting. Shields said the city would continue to assess and that the council is making targeted investments to mitigate flood risk.
