Shall the Town of Hampton vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $80,000 to conduct an investigation and preliminary design for a storm water drainage system for the King’s Highway area from Winnacunnet Road to the closed 12th Street Sewer Pumping Station and from the closed 12th Street Sewer Pumping Station to High Street, to include Greene Street, Meadow Pond Road, Gentian Road and portions of High Street and the numbered streets where necessary and including the design for converting the abandoned sewer line and pumping station to move storm water in the new system, with said sum of $80,000 to come from the Undesignated Fund Balance. This will be a non-lapsing appropriation per RSA 32:7, VI and shall not lapse until the work is completed or by March 31, 2020, whichever is sooner?
NOTE – These streets are regularly inundated with water covering and ponding in the roadways. The water is considered a traffic hazard due to the potential for freezing during the winter and also causes conflict during the summer when motorists are trying to avoid the water with pedestrians and bicyclists in the roadway. The elevation of the water table and the infiltration rates of the soils prevent water from being able to infiltrate into the subsurface areas. The grade of the roads and the saturated soils cause water to cover and pond in the roadways and flood yards along these streets.
What it means: This is related to the flooding issues of Article 20, in that they both address flooding but from different perspectives. Article 20 provides for the study and possible solutions to flooding in general, whereas Article 22 would address the issues with moving standing water away from the roads and homes. There is a suspicion that the drainage in the Kings Highway area is not working properly – either the pipes are clogged or perhaps they are not large enough. The purpose of the study is to determine likely causes and to preliminarily design a drainage system to address those issues.
Those in favor say: Storm water drainage is long overdue along King’s Highway. A light rain shower results in excessive standing water on the roadway.
Those against say: We have allowed the building of homes and roads in places that couldn’t support it. Do we need a study to know where we went wrong?
Fiscal Impact: No tax impact because the dollars are being withdrawn from the Unassigned Fund Balance.