Recent weeks have seen social media flooded with pictures of blocked storm drains, sloppy alleys and water-filled garages as spring attempts to push through what seems like a never-ending thaw and freeze.
During the inquiries portion of Monday's Town council meeting, Coun. Brent Robinson noted he, like many residents, has observed these conditions around Okotoks and asked a number of questions on the subject.
He wanted to know what development and/or construction standard is applied to alleys, what the standard is for clearing alleys, how the Town assesses and responds to resident concerns about freeze-thaw scenarios in alleys and catch basins, and how the general spring-is-coming scenario is handled by the Town for the benefit of the community.
"March is probably the most difficult month for transportation," said chief administrative officer Elaine Vincent.
She explained the priority of Town crews during this time is to respond to urgent concerns regarding flooding and impacts or potential damage to property.
"The number one message for residents is please call it in," Vincent added. "With all due respect, posting it on Facebook isn't really helpful because our team needs to go out, assess the conditions of the road and then determine from a prioritization matrix what they need to be focusing their time and effort on."
Alleyways and back alleys are defined as priority three roadways under the snow and ice control policy, according to Vincent, so crews will only attend in those areas is if they become impassible, treacherous or potentially cause harm.
Community development and engineering manager Jeremy Huet said crews visit areas that have historically had these issues on a regular basis to ensure their condition is sufficient.
Vincent said there is likely a reason homeowners with garages are getting unwanted water on their property.
"One of the specific issues you're describing I think is a result of when we have construction not built according to the plans that were submitted to the Town," she said.
Prior to 2012, the Town did not do inspections of as-builts, according to the CAO.
"So we would get a plan and they would say, 'It's going to be built this way' and we didn't go out to inspect to determine if it was actually built this way," she explained. "So in a number of our older roadways, we have a number of garages that are built lower than what the lane standard is."
One of the possible solutions to this problem is a local improvement process, which Vincent said has been proposed and rejected on three occasions by residents in problematic areas.
Residents concerned about the state of their alley, garage, stormwater or anything else of that sort are encouraged to call the operations centre at 403-938-8952.
