Ellicott City flood plan presented
Plan aims to enhance green space, pedestrian-friendly measures
Historic Ellicott City resident Bill Withers believes there is “real potential” for the Ellicott City flood plan to work.
Withers, who lives on Fells Lane, has been attending flood planning meetings for over two years. He said the plan presented Tuesday night shows “a lot of thought and work.”
The old mill community has faced two catastrophic floods since 2016.
Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, a Democrat, unveiled a massive public works project in May that could cost as much as $140 million to ease future flooding in Ellicott City.
The plan, which would not fully prevent flooding, includes razing four buildings on lower Main Street to widen the Tiber channel and boring a large tunnel parallel to Main Street to divert cascading floodwater on the north end.
Tom McGilloway, principal of Mahan Rykiel Associates, a landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm with an office in Baltimore, gave a presentation on the Ellicott City master plan, including Ball’s flood mitigation plan, to community members at the George Howard Building on Tuesday night.
A draft plan is expected to be released in early 2020.
The five pillars of the plan are flood mitigation, environmental sustainability, transportation and parking, economic development, and community character and placemaking.
“A master plan like this is a long-term guiding plan. It is not something that will happen overnight,” McGilloway said.
While Ball’s flood mitigation plan will be executed within the next five to seven See FLOOD, page 6
Withers, who lives on Fells Lane, has been attending flood planning meetings for over two years. He said the plan presented Tuesday night shows “a lot of thought and work.”
The old mill community has faced two catastrophic floods since 2016.
Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, a Democrat, unveiled a massive public works project in May that could cost as much as $140 million to ease future flooding in Ellicott City.
The plan, which would not fully prevent flooding, includes razing four buildings on lower Main Street to widen the Tiber channel and boring a large tunnel parallel to Main Street to divert cascading floodwater on the north end.
Tom McGilloway, principal of Mahan Rykiel Associates, a landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm with an office in Baltimore, gave a presentation on the Ellicott City master plan, including Ball’s flood mitigation plan, to community members at the George Howard Building on Tuesday night.
A draft plan is expected to be released in early 2020.
The five pillars of the plan are flood mitigation, environmental sustainability, transportation and parking, economic development, and community character and placemaking.
“A master plan like this is a long-term guiding plan. It is not something that will happen overnight,” McGilloway said.
While Ball’s flood mitigation plan will be executed within the next five to seven See FLOOD, page 6
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