SIDE STREETS: Timberview drainage finally gets a look

Bob Curtis didn't know who to call.

With every hard rain, his home in the Timberview subdivision east of Monument would flood, undermining his foundation and carrying away his landscaping. Since buying the home on Loverly Way in 2005, Curtis said he has spent $20,000 to dig drainage ditches around it and install rip-rap.

But the problem remained, and he wanted the property owners association to insist that the developer fix it by installing a system of curbs, gutters, storm sewers, drainage ditches, retention ponds or whatever it would take.

His complaints to the Timberview Property Owners Association and management company resulted only in frustration. Even El Paso County inspectors didn't seem to want to listen, Curtis said.
So he contacted Side Streets.

Suddenly, Curtis has an invitation to meet with El Paso County Engineer André Brackin, who has offered to tour the neighborhood of $500,000 custom homes and inspect the damage to determine whether the developers should make repairs.

"This has been going on since 2006," Curtis said. "Whenever it rains, tons of water comes down and washes things away. It's open drainage. There's no drainage system. Water comes down the road and washes out peoples' yards."

Drive around the hilly, wooded neighborhood and you will see gullies and alluvials fans - obvious signs of erosion from fast-moving water.

There is also a patchwork of private drainage ditches dug by homeowners like Curtis, 58, who retired last September as a top computer system engineer at the Air Force Academy. (See photos of the ditches and the damage Curtis has suffered over the years on my Side Streets blog.)

The president of the Timberview POA, Mike Fiedler, even dug drainage ditches around his home on Saddle Ridge Court, which sits across the road from the Woodmoor Water & Sanitation District's water tank, 100 feet higher than Loverly Way. If he's got drainage issues, imagine how bad it must be for folks below on Metcalf Lane and Loverly.

In fact, Fiedler said the POA has heard the complaints from Curtis and others and is working with the county to pressure the developer and get them resolved. The county can order that the problem be fixed at the developer's expense.

"The county has told me there was no adequate drainage engineering done or drainage construction done," Fiedler said, adding that he has been POA president less than a year and can't answer for the actions of the previous board.
"The infrastructure for adequate drainage of the POA was never built out," Fiedler said. "What we have now is not adequate. It's a broad issue, not limited to one piece of property or another. We want to see the issues resolved."

That declaration was news to Curtis, who insists the problem was being ignored.

And Brackin said Thursday he was unaware the problem extended beyond the need to widen a drainage channel from a detention pond and stop flooding on Highway 105 on the north edge of the subdivision.

"I've been talking to the homeowners association, and the Curtis drainage thing has not been mentioned," Brackin said.
By Friday, however, Brackin had promised to meet with Curtis and other neighbors and get the developer to address the bigger flooding issue.

Maybe there's hope for Curtis and his neighbors after all.

Tell me about your neighborhood: 636-0193 or bill.vogrin@gazette.com