Redbrickbear said:
trey3216 said:
cowboycwr said:
Eleven-League Grant said:
Concerning the muddy holes in developments --
In recent years, many municipalities are requiring that developers provide a certain amount of storm water detention to compensate for what the planners term to be the 'impervious surfaces' that builders create when they build houses, buildings, streets, etc. Oftentimes that detention turns into some kind of muddy hole in the ground.
Developers would rather not have to do this at all and instead just drain rainwater runoff straight to the municipal storm sewers, because even though oftentimes they pay by the square foot for the land they are buying for the development, the big muddy hole makes them no money, as it obviously can't be built on.
Some developers get creative and call their muddy hole a 'private lake' that is then deeded to a HOA which then regularly extracts its pound of flesh from each resident in the development for the 'maintenance' of the muddy hole.
The alternative is for municipalities to spend more money on storm water infrastructure and most don't want to spend it on that.
In the Houston area this is especially true. The above is why it floods EVERY time it rains. Every new building/subdivision adds more concrete instead of dirt/grass for the rain to soak into it.
That's a fact anywhere. If you build, you're taking away dirt/grass and adding concrete. Lest we want to drive on grass highways and roads, that's going to be the case.
In the Midwest they are slowly be surely returning to gravel roads.
Retain less heat, cheaper to maintain, etc.
https://blog.midwestind.com/converting-paved-to-unpaved-roads/
[There's a growing movement of converting paved into unpaved roads. By 2015, road conversion projects had occurred in 27 states (including Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Michigan, Alabama, Pennsylvania and more). ]
https://www.startribune.com/making-a-rural-comeback-the-old-gravel-road/118713504/
In rural areas, I think this is ideal (so long as someone will help upkeep the roads, since the cities aren't likely to do much).
Everyone *****es about the retaining ponds, but they're much better than some of the alternatives. I've seen firsthand a lot of the projected hydrology in Texas, and it's ugly). everyone in Houston can't seem to understand how it always floods, but forgets they live in a bowl that is at and below sea level in many spots with an unrelenting northward/northwestward expansion (main water absorption area).
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.