Residents complain after Broken Arrow housing project floods neighborhood

Written By: John Dobberstein

(BROKEN ARROW, Okla.) Groundwork for a housing development in Broken Arrow has been temporarily stopped after neighbors shared pictures of mud and water inundating their streets on the city’s southeast side.

Read this story on Broken Arrow Sentinel here. 

After heavy rain a couple of weeks ago, a torrent of water and silt coming from the 50-foot buffer for the proposed Spring Creek Crossing development entered the neighboring Southfork Estates neighborhood just to the east.

Some residents said flooding caused has progressively gotten worse this spring after two rainstorms hit the area. Many of them fought the development over the last year over flooding and traffic concerns, but the project was eventually approved.

Spring Creek Crossing is proposed to be 37 acres and 132 housing units along Tucson Street, just west of Lynn Lane Road. The City Council voted Tuesday to table approval of the final plat for the project until the concerns were addressed.

Broken Arrow resident Dustin Fletcher, who lives in Southfork Estates, showed video of water and dirt flowing down his street, some of it entering his patio and outdoor structure. Other homes had a deluge of muddy water sitting in front of their homes.

Fletcher said he and neighbors were on record numerous times during Planning Commission and City Council meetings expressing concerns about flooding and their worst fears came true.

“I think there are a lot of questions with the grading and engineering that has come into play,” Fletcher told the City Council. “At the end of the day, I don’t have any answers, but something has to be done.”

The site developers were supposed to install silt fencing and follow best practices for stormwater management when groundwork began. Ward 2 City Council member Justin Green, who lives in the area, said silt fencing for the project only went up a few weeks ago, even though construction work has been ongoing for months.

Megan Pasco, an engineer for Tulsa-based Tanner Consulting, said she hadn’t heard any concerns from neighbors about flooding until Tuesday before the meeting. She questioned whether residents might have reached out to the future home developer, rather than the site builder, leading to confusion about the responsible party.

City Manager Michael Spurgeon said the flooding issues were only brought to his attention on Tuesday as well and he would direct staff provide the firm building the site a list of steps needed to address the problem in a certain timeframe.

Pasco said Tanner Consulting was “doing the best we can” to mitigate the runoff and added “the conditions out there today will not be the final conditions. Construction is painful process to get through, and the contractor and developer are under obligation to do the best they can to mitigate these things and to address those concerns as they happen.”

Pasco added the final site design will redirect a sunstantial portion of water flow away from the Southfork neighborhood. “We did think about these things in the engineering design,” she said.

Spurgeon said seeing the photos and video of muddy floodwaters in the adjacent neighborhood was “infuriating” to him. “I have a hard time accepting ‘be we can,’” Spurgeon told Pasco. “You have residents here and others who are concerned and I think your responsibility is to basically follow the code.”

At-Large City Council member Johnnie Parks said measures to control runoff should have been in place before the spring rains hit.

“I’ve not seen a job in the last few years where that much silt came off the roadways where it hasn’t before,” he said. “The dirt is going to have to be moved if it builds up enough.”

City officials said some residents may not understand the home builder in a project may be different than the site developer, and if there are any concerns with work going on they should contact the city, rather than trying to reach the developer.