Oak Brook is preparing a Stormwater Master Plan to understand current flooding issues in the village better and prioritize future stormwater management improvements.
The Master Plan will serve as a guide for future policies, programs, and projects. Village officials are seeking input from residents.
“Through our proactive efforts to inventory the community, the Village is aware of some areas throughout the village that require stormwater improvements,” Village Manager Greg Summers said. “In addition, the Village collects, documents, and addresses complaints as received.”
However, residents and businesses of the village have their eyes on their respective properties with much greater frequency and often have much greater detail that they can provide, Summers said,
“The survey provides property owners a mechanism to formalize their reporting and ensure that the Village staff and our consultants have a comprehensive inventory of known issues so that we can holistically study any problems and prioritize solutions that maximize benefit while minimizing costs,” he said.
The pre-final draft of the Stormwater Master Plan is expected to be complete by this fall, Summer said.
The first phase of the master planning process is preparing a stormwater model better to understand the capacity of the current storm sewer network and identify areas prone to flooding. The second phase will include the development of conceptual projects, policies, and programs that can be implemented to address flooding at critical locations.
“The Village wants to ensure that we have a complete catalog of stormwater problems, and no one is more aware of localized issues than the property owners, who see the impacts daily,” Summers said. “The study provides the opportunity for those property owners to ensure that the village is aware of any issues they are seeing so that their individual issue is considered and addressed in the context of the greater community.”
The survey may be found online by clicking on a Flooding Survey tab at www.oak-brook.org/261/Public-Works.
Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
