Houston's 100-Year Floodplain Is the Site of Political Debate Ahead of New Land Development

This week, Houston's City Council will be deciding whether or not to allow the creation of a municipal utility district for Spring Brook Village, a new master-planned community to be built in a west Houston floodplain.

Local officials emphasized that Meritage Homes' development plan exceeds minimum requirements for detaining storm water, the Houston Chronicle reports. Houston-based hydrologist Matthew Berg's analysis shows the annual record volume of water carried by the Brickhouse Gully floodway, the center of the proposed development, has risen at the ninth-fastest rate of all stream gauges included in the review.

"This is how we created legacy problems. The concern here is this is not something that is required of the city to do," said Jim Blackburn, environmental attorney and co-director of Rice University's Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters Center. "Everyone I'm talking to is in agreement that the 100-year floodplain is inadequate, and if something like this is discretionary, they have the authority to say, 'No thank you, we choose not to do this.'"

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