Stormwater Design Partnership Delivers Aesthetic and Effective Solution for Prairie Village Residents

Category: News and Updates

Date: June 23, 2020

In partnership with Water Resources Solutions, LLC (WRS), our team blended aesthetics and design savvy to address decades of continual flooding for a Prairie Village neighborhood. The stormwater project located between Delmar Lane and Fontana Street was completed late this spring.

We first updated you on our progress in September and are excited to share the results of the finished improvements. The changes have made a dramatic impact for those in the Town and Country Estates subdivision. Since its original development in the 1960’s, this neighborhood was drained by a series of concrete flumes and a pair of low-water crossings. The existing system regularly flooded during typical storm events to the degree that cars had been washed off the road and moved downstream.

The City opted for an aggressive design approach, which lowered the flood elevation with expanded rock channels featuring a vegetated flood bench. These benches are filled with plant species selected to not only withstand varying levels of sun exposure and water inundation, but also filter stormwater and blend aesthetically with otherwise nicely manicured suburban properties. We worked individually with 12 affected property owners to tie the project into their existing residential landscaping, as well as replace any trees or shrubs lost during the construction process. This project brought increased flood resiliency to the neighborhood, replaced two dangerous low water crossings with culverts, and improved the beauty and sustainability of their stormwater system through a process that involved the affected stakeholders.

This project was no simple fix. The channels traverse the rear and side lot lines of multiple properties and share space with nearly every other buried utility. During the process, we worked closely with Prairie Village Public Works staff and individual homeowners to ensure the acceptance of the stormwater design plan. The landscape improvements acted very much like a band-aid to heal both the physical scars of the construction process and the emotional trauma of years of sporadic flooding and property damage.

We will be diving deeper into the design and engagement process later this month during the Kansas City Chapter of the American Planning Association’s event- Let’s Talk Landscape. Follow this link to learn more about it: https://kc-apa.org/events/2020/6/30/lets-talk-landscape

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