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County highway department facility hits drainage speed bump
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By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
It appears as if the proposed $2.5 million county highway office and garage, slated to be built on a 22.5 acre tract of land on the west edge of Caledonia is moving forward, although there is one stumbling block that needs to be cleared first.
Houston County Highway Engineer Marcus Evans, and department foreman Tom Molling reported to the county board during the May 20 meeting. The two had attended the Caledonia City Council meeting the previous night, where the city council approved the variance requests, and all of the preliminary plans…except for one.
The county had asked the city to assume all responsibility, including the costs of upgrading the storm water run-off system in the event the drainage ditch and holding pond, located on the east and south sides of the property was undersized. The city took over ownership of the drainage ditch and pond several years ago in order to maintain it.
The system was designed 12 years ago to handle a 30-home development by QED Engineering when Ma Cal Developers began developing that portion of Caledonia.
The county plans to construct a 40,000 square foot highway office/shop, a 30,000 square foot truck storage building, a 30,000 square foot salt shed, a parking lot, and roads to access the various buildings.
At the Monday night council meeting, Molling said he calculated the amount of impervious area for a 30-home development, including garages, driveways, and roads, and the county plans would actually have more green space and less impervious area.
“There should be less water run-off with what we want to do, compared to the 30-home development the system was designed to handle,” Molling said. “But we’d like to look at the plans to make sure.”
The city does not have a copy of the design plans, but requested a set be sent nearly a month ago. As of last Monday, the city had not received the plans.
The city denied the county’s request to assume all responsibility if the system failed, but did grant the county permission to construct a series of dikes on the drainage ditch to slow down the flow of water, and/or increase the size of the city-owned pond in the event the QED study indicates more capacity to the system is needed.
County Personnel Director Tim Comstock pointed out that there could be a potential liability issue if the county did work on property that was owned by the city.
The county board decided to wait and see if a copy of the engineering study could be procured and reviewed within the next two weeks. The county has until June 6 to exercise their option to purchase the property.
Who’s going where?
Evans told the board in order to move forward with the highway department building plans, they need to know just how many county departments might be located in the new facility.
“We can’t move forward without knowing who will be moving out to the new building,” Evans said.
Commissioner Ann Thompson said a committee needed to review the various possibilities and make a decision soon. She suggested the land use committee review this issue. They will meet Tuesday, May 27.
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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