With soggy ground, wet basements and ducks seen on puddle-filled streets some springs, homeowners in the Willows are asking for some help to improve stormwater drainage in their southeast Kalispell neighborhood.

At the request of a majority of residents, the city of Kalispell is moving ahead with the creation of a special improvement district for them.

The city would issue 20-year bonds for an estimated $392,556 to upgrade the neighborhood’s stormwater detention pond and discharge pipe and then take possession of the system for future maintenance.

Landowners in the district then would pay an estimated $28 to $30 a month of extra property taxes to pay off that debt.

Brock Anderson, who lives on Buttercup Loop, on Monday told the Kalispell City Council there is widespread support for the project in the neighborhood.

“We’re at 76.3 percent,” he said of polls and surveys done and signatures from other homeowners. “And that was at $40.26 a month, so that was pretty impressive for them to recognize something needs done.”

Kalispell annexed the 87-lot subdivision after it was built by a developer who put in an inadequate drainage system that did not meet the city’s standards, tasking a future homeowner’s association that never materialized with its ownership and maintenance.

On Monday, the Kalispell City Council passed a resolution of intent to start creating the special improvement district.

“It’s a crying shame homeowners are left to make up for problems created or not resolved by the developer,” Mayor Tammi Fisher said. “To their credit, they will get support to remedy this because the stigma of having a home in an underwater subdivision is significant.”

The resolution starts a protest period that runs from Friday through July 9 with a public hearing July 16. Only landowners in the proposed district can protest its formation.

“If more than 50 percent of landowners protest it, then no SID takes place. It’s a reverse-ballot type of thing,” said City Attorney Charlie Harball.

ON THE other side of south Kalispell, work continues on stormwater drainage improvements for the South Meadows neighborhood. About $100,000 in engineering and design work was started last year and should be completed by mid-July, Public Works Director Susie Turner told the council.

“Then we can go out to bid to see how much we can get done with $700,000 to complete this project,” Turner said. The plan is to complete the improvements this summer and fall and into next spring.

Unlike the Willows, the South Meadows project is being funded with money from Kalispell’s annual stormwater assessments. Residents were not interested in forming a special improvement district to pay for a better drainage system.

“We had meetings with South Meadows and talked to them about a Cadillac versus Volkswagen system,”  Harball said. “The one they will get will be a vast improvement, but not what they would get with an SID.”

South Meadows also was annexed by Kalispell after it was built. The neighborhood’s inadequate ditch and culvert conveyance system is in the public right of way, making it the city’s responsibility to fix.

Drainage problems are in the older part of the two-phase neighborhood and the project will include South Meadows Drive, Bluestone Drive and Belmont Street, Turner said.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at [email protected].