Brodhead

To the Editor:   

The city has approved a new subdivision called 7th Avenue Subdivision. This includes the land bounded by E. 6th and E. 7th Avenue and 15th and 17th Streets. This land cannot be developed for housing. The water table is too high. It is a cache basin for an arroyo or dry creek that flows through town from the north. 

If one knows where to look, one can find evidence of it. It is interrupted by streets and homes, but it is still there and still flows when it is rainy or snow melts. If housing is allowed to be developed on the land bounded by E. 6th and E. 7th Avenue and 15th and 17th Streets, it is going to cause more of a water problem for those basements of homes in the area that already have a problem. It will also cause more water problems along the arroyo, besides the flooding of the intersections of E. 3rd Avenue and 10th Street and E. 4th Avenue and Exchange Street when it is rainy and when snow melts.  This will cause water problems in basements that do not have problems now.  The only suitable development for this land bounded by E. 6th and E. 7th Avenue and 15th and 17th Streets is as a park.  

I proposed several years ago that this land be developed as Prairie Park. The land would be purchased with grants applied for and developed by Applied Ecological. The city discriminates against residents that live in the southern half of town by not having any parks in the southern half of town.   

Any mitigation is not going to change the fact that it is going cause a bigger water problem in basements in houses in the area, plus additional houses farther out and above this area. This is what happened in northeast Brodhead after the Crossroads subdivision went in. Houses on the west side of County T started experiencing a water problem in their basements.