What do you know of a “Bio Retention Cell” aka: Rain Garden?
Would you try to stop or encourage the city to develop one along your property line in the right of way (the grassy parking area between your sidewalk to the street curb)?
This is becoming a popular way to treat/infiltrate storm water runoff from city streets with funding programs available to construct. Generally I encourage this, as long as the city will be maintaining. City would typically have a plan for maintenance prior to constructing. Just like a traditional garden, weeds do grow and require maintenance. Plants selected will typically thicken over time and weeding becomes less, but still there. No watering is necessary! Other maintenance includes removing debris that washes in and addition of mulch. Rain gardens can be very attractive and an amenity if designed correctly and maintained. Distance from homes is typically far enough that water infiltration does not affect foundations.
Our illustrious city along with the Mayo Clinic’s new “destination medical center” garbola has redesigned several key streets in Rochester and added gardens in the center areas separating the two directional lanes. In many areas what is planted is beginning to create issues with seeing traffic coming from the other direction. Accidents have been caused. In other areas here the gardens become havens for weeds and they go from being eye catching to eye sores in the course of a summer. If something of this nature was being proposed in front of my house I’d argue against it big time.
When our streets got redone in Brooklyn Center years back they put these in and I thought they were great. How time treated them idk, but at the time certain neighbors would pick a garden to adopt and they all looked awesome.
We as people need more of this ingenuity. As far as the wrong plants being planted and obstructing traffic is a joke, and that should be corrected immediately but doesnt mean the whole idea is crap.
Flash flooding and clean waters are and will continue to be issues if we don’t try to slow and clean it down before it hits our waterways. This is one small was to get er done for now.
I don’t think you could have a good one in a median because rain couldn’t collect there if there was a curb around it. That just sounds like landscaping.
I drive along one street that has rain gardens and it is awesome. They dug out the area between the sidewalk and curb about a foot in the center.
When the city first proposed one along my side yard property line, the long side (I live on a corner lot) I was unknowing just what exactly it was. My first thought was it is there property but I have to mow it and they will do what ever they want, period.
At first talking it was only going to be about 1/3 of the total depth of my lot. Starting at the NW corner (front corner) and extending to the East (back yard) NW corner. Now the proposal is the whole North property line, approx 150′ Minus an area that allows us access to the street and an area to put our trash dumpsters out on the curb..
I have had a quick learning for “Rain Gardens 101″ in the last few days. They first were talking about an 18″ to 2′ depression, (hummm I think that isn’t going to happen for a width from sidewalk to back of curb that measures at most 9′) What I’m finding is the finished depression is in a 1 to 3 ratio. SO given a 9′ width, divide that in 1/2 that would be at about 13-1/2″ if i’m right.
They would excavate 2 to 3 ‘ and back fill with a sub-drain and a sandy mix of soils and other to a finish depression of 13″+/- in a 4-1/2ft width.
My first thought was who would be required for the maintenance. Second was if there was a larger drop off (living on a corner lot and I have a garden wall on my property side of the walk that is about 32” high) who will be liable if there is a suit due to personal injury. That thought came to me early when I was hearing a 2ft depression, ya know kids on bikes like James Holst hitting my corner a bit too fast on his skateboard or elders slip sliding off the corner during the winter, I can see BK doing this.
My point is who would be named in a suit? Now I’m heading to thoughts, in my case of a 9’ easement and a given 3/1 slope, that seems gentle. What kind of excess liability would I have over the normal? I believe it would have some additional merit on to me, maybe? Or since the city has done this in there easement and on their own I should bear no liability?
I received this response earlier from a good friend of mine.
To quote:
“Its function is to capture and slow down stormwater runoff, and remove contaminants/nutrients from stormwater before allowing it to reach other storm drains, creeks or retention ponds.
What is usually looks like is a professionally landscaped area. With the amount of over fertilizing lawns we Iowans tend to do, and the algae blooms it causes to our lakes, ponds, and streams.” Unquote.
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