Detention pond in the complex

[Tushar P.]

Is it normal in Houston for a housing complex to have a detention pond? Is this new regulation? I wonder what it means for the resale value even if it is mandatory due to regulations, especially for the houses just beside the pond.

[John Barcellona]

I've been working in land development and site development in Houston since 2003 so I've had a lot of experience with designing detention ponds.

Generally speaking a detention pond will not adversely affect a house's value provided the pond is maintained properly.  Due to Harvey, the City of Houston, Harris County, and Fort Bend County have especially increased storm sewer design requirements.  Included in this is increased detention storage rates for storm water runoff.  Part of the new regulations is that the minimum slab elevation has to be 2 feet higher than the 500 Year Base Flood Elevation (BFE).  In the past it was only required to have the slab 1 foot (or 1.5 foot for some areas) higher than the 100 Year BFE.  So no agency (federal, state, or local) really regulated what would happen with all that extra water when a storm hit that exceeded the 100 Year Storm.  Well that has now changed.  So for new neighborhoods, the new houses could be many feet higher (2'-4' higher generally speaking) than the houses that were built in an previous Section just a year or two before.  This is the first drastic change to drainage requirements since Allison in 2001. So that's part of the reason why you don't see a lot of detention ponds near houses 30+ years old but you do see a lot of ponds in subdivisions with houses 20 years old and newer.  Whether newer or older, most detention ponds were required to have an "extreme event overflow structure" in the design so you can see exactly what the design intent was for the particular pond your looking at.  You can typically get the construction drawings for these ponds from the City, County, or MUD as these are public records. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to let me know as I could talk on this for days.  I'm a civil engineer and I work for Jones and Carter.

I only have 5 rentals in Baton Rouge, (where I'm originally from - Geaux Tigers!), but I plan on buying 2 next year in Katy or Cypress.  I just joined BP a couple months ago and I haven't even had a chance to find a local meet up yet so if anyone knows of any near Memorial or Bellaire, please let me know.  This is my first BP post - sorry it's so long.