Huntington Woods explores rear-yard drainage options as engineers and landscapers weigh tradeoffs

Huntington Woods heard two technical briefings on stormwater management as officials and residents weighed how to reduce rear-yard ponding in older parts of the city. Consultants emphasized that solutions carry tradeoffs because much of the city sits on clay soils and uses a combined sewer system that can surcharge if private connections are not carefully controlled.

Brad Bercow of Nowak & Frause, introduced by city staff, told the commission the city's challenge is "older developments" where rear-yard low points cause water to collect. "The issue that we're seeing is a lot of this is these are older developments," Bercow said, and he described three conventional approaches: backyard catch basins that require regrading, French drains that are less invasive but prone to clogging and poor winter performance, and leaching basins that work in sandy soils but perform poorly in clay.

Bercow described how peer communities in southeast Michigan handle connections to combined systems: inlet structures with sumps and traps, restrictors to slow inflow and backflow prevention devices on sanitary laterals. He said maintenance is typically the homeowner's responsibility and that municipalities generally require sealed engineering designs before permitting any private connection. "Homeowners shall submit sealed engineering design for review, and location of storm connection needs to be approved by the city engineer," he said.

Commissioners asked whether Huntington Woods lies in a FEMA floodplain and for a soils breakdown. Bercow said the city is not in a FEMA floodplain and estimated roughly "25 to 30% max" of properties have sandy soils with the remainder dominated by denser clay, noting the southwest corner as particularly clay-heavy. He also reiterated that standard design practice sizes conveyance for a 10-year storm while detention calculations often aim at longer-duration events, and that county standards have increased design intensities in recent years.

Ivan of Great Lakes (presenting for Great Lakes Hydrology Systems) offered complementary green-infrastructure and emerging-technology approaches intended to increase infiltration with minimal surface disruption. Ivan outlined storage-and-infiltration measures such as rain barrels, bio-swales, engineered soils and modular subsurface storage, and described a passive device marketed as JEPs (Groundwater Energy Passive System) that the contractor said uses vertical, small-diameter installations to improve lateral groundwater movement. Ivan said the units are polyethylene and "will not biodegrade," and that installations vary from shallow backyard arrays to deeper commercial installations; he described typical site-acclimation periods of three to six months.

Speakers and residents pressed elected officials and staff on practical points: whether homeowners would have to pay new tap or usage fees, who would maintain private devices, how to ensure long-term maintenance and whether allowance of private connections could overload the combined sewer if many houses on the same block connected. Bercow said whether a tap to the main sewer would be charged depends on how a homeowner connects and that many cities offer credits when redevelopment reduces impervious area; he reiterated that private ties usually require inspection (televise/clean) of the sanitary lateral before acceptance.

Multiple residents urged the city to expand public education, to map roof/driveway drainage footprints and to enforce existing permit and as-built requirements, including downspout placement and driveway grading. Resident Susan Compton noted plan notes that warn purchasers of seasonal ponding and urged better attention to as-built surveys and permit compliance.

No ordinance amendments were adopted at the meeting. Staff said the presentations and public feedback will inform ordinance drafting and that commissioners will see draft language and fee/permit structures in future meetings. Staff also flagged the possibility of targeted pilot projects or block-scale detention where engineering shows a feasible solution without overloading regional conveyance.

The city manager and staff said costs and permit language are among issues to be refined before any formal ordinance vote, and they recommended additional technical data and local pilot demonstrations before allowing private connections into combined sewers.