While attending a meet and greet on Friday February 28th at City Hall one of the Wildomar City Council members present was bragging about standing on a piece of property which will one day house a sandwich shop and strip mall commenting about how dry it was, the drainage was just fine and there was no signs of flooding.
I got a big chuckle at that statement because.
At that very moment not a block away Bundy Canyon Road was a torrential river with a flow path that varied with every car the passed due to the movement of rocks and dirt when they drove done the road.
If pressed on the issue this council person would tell you that when constructed the new business would build a retention basin.
The problem being that this retention basin would only filter pollutants and sediments from that parcel and modulate the INCREASED flow created by this development. It would not correct the existing deficiencies that already exist due to the County of Riverside and the City of Wildomar’s failure in providing for a proper drainage system.
This deficiency was originally foisted upon County Flood Control without proper Developer Impact fees being collected by the County of Riverside, a practice continued for 6 years under LOCAL CONTROL by a City Council that neglected to adjust the Impact Fees when Wildomar became a city.
To add insult to injury the Developer Impact Study which was completed almost 2 years before the City Council adopted the new fees are wholly inadequate to address the drainage issue. The Colgan Study recommended a fee of $1,749.51 per 1,000 gross square feet of development for this type of development and what finally adopted was $911.00 per 1,000 sq. ft.
This council person will sit there and complain about lawsuits which have delayed this project while totally ignoring what everyone around that project has faced for years and will continue to face in ever increasing frequency for many more years to come.