City Council Recap
Hampton Avenue Stream Restoration Project
Last night City Council approved the appropriation of $1,271,250 for the Hampton Avenue Stream Restoration and Constructed Wetlands project. This project is in the Salters Creek watershed in the Southeast community. The open drainage ditch is tidally influenced and causes flooding of streets and properties during rainstorms. This project will repair and improve the four existing culverts at Buxton, Poplar and Maple avenues. It will also provide pollutant reductions by constructing a total of 1.7 acres of tidal and non-tidal wetlands along the open channel. Because the project includes the reduction of pollutants, the City was able to obtain $167,500 in Stormwater Local Assistance Fund grant monies from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The remaining $1,103,750 is from the Stormwater Drainage category of the current Capital Improvements Plan.
Main Street Drainage Improvements Project
Council also appropriated $2,413,000 for the Main Street Drainage Improvements project in Hilton Village. St. Andrews Episcopal Church and surrounding properties have been flooded numerous times in recent years due to undersized drainage systems. This project will redirect the flow from under St. Andrews to a new storm sewer trunk line on Ferguson Avenue and Main Street that continues onto River Road. A new trunk line in the ravine of Hilton Elementary School property is also part of the project and new drainage outfalls will extend 60 feet into the James River and reduce bacteria related beach closing advisories. Construction is expected to begin this spring and last about seven months. A majority of the work will be completed within the roadway requiring single travel lane or parking lane closures. This is the first of three projects planned to address drainage in the area. Future projects will address flooding at the Main Street underpass and along Warwick Boulevard.
Other Actions
All items on last night’s regular City Council
meeting agenda were approved, and the entire Council meeting can be viewed on-demand.
Next Meeting
The next regular meeting of the Newport News City Council will be Tuesday, May 9th. City Council typically meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month at 7:00 pm in City Council Chambers, City Hall, 2400 Washington Avenue. Meetings are shown live on the City's Cable Channel NNTV (Cox Ch 48/Verizon Ch 19) and are streamed live on
www.nnva.gov/nntv. City Council meetings are also available to be
watched on-demand the day following the meeting. Oftentimes City Council holds work sessions in the 10th floor conference room of City Hall in the afternoon before the regular meetings. Work sessions are open to the public. Agendas for work sessions and regular meetings are
available online in the Agenda Center the Friday before the meeting.