KANNAPOLIS — At their Feb. 12 work session meeting, the Kannapolis City Council heard a presentation from Assistant City Manager Wilmer Melton on the stormwater problems that the Rose Hill neighborhood is presently facing.

The neighborhood first came about in the 1930s, but the roads were built before the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s “current design standards” were in place. In 1989, Kannapolis took over the roads themselves from NCDOT as they were not “designed to carry a 25-year storm event” according to Melton. 

“What we have found looking at mapping is that there’s a lot of the floodplain area that goes through the Rose Hill community and some of the structures are impacted as a result of the 100-year floodplain,” Melton said

Melton said the neighborhood experiences “significant flooding” and the city has received over 300 requests for flooding and drainage assistance. The stormwater system the city has now pertains to the upkeep of public infrastructure, but requests from residents are related to private infrastructure. Many of the complaints have come from Rose Hill Missionary Baptist Church on Rice Street and Rosemont Avenue. The city’s policy does not permit “maintenance of private infrastructure outside of public right-of-way.”

The church has sustained flooding in its basement due to their pipes being in “poor condition” and “undersized.” The neighborhood improvements Melton mentioned included replacing its culvert system with larger piping, but that would not solve all of the issues. Upgrading the public systems will not prevent flooding by itself without the private ones being replaced, which is difficult since they travel across “multiple privately owned lots.”

Staff recommended that the city partner with the church and nearby property to move out of the floodplain. Melton said regulations would be enacted to make sure no future building is constructed on the property. 

The reasons the city would be more hands on with a private drainage system is that it is “unique and different from most of the other complaints we have received city-wide because the actual structure is located within the 100-year floodplain and is experiencing regular flooding of the structure itself,” as the city council agenda staff report states. 

FEMA funding could be needed to purchase the properties in question. Staff further recommended a “comprehensive stormwater master plan” to determine which projects would obtain public investment. A proposed stormwater improvement policy and determining funding sources would go along with the master plan. 

“This will be a really complex process and I think we’ll all have to pledge to be patient as we move through it, but if we play our cards right, this could be a really good thing for a lot of people,” City Manager Mike Legg said.