CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – For the past five years, William Lange and his wife have been working toward building their dream house and a barn in the Meadow Lane subdivision of St. Bethlehem, off Trenton Road.

“Within three weeks of me buying this property, I had started building the barn,” Lange told Clarksville Now. “Then, I would say four or five weeks later, came a torrential downpour.” The water came up on the low side of his property and into the barn. “I knew then I would have to build up to figure out how the water was coming in.”

But building up wouldn’t be an option: Officials with the Clarksville Street Department told him he couldn’t change the elevation on his property, with little explanation as to why. Years later, he found out why: His property near Love and Hayes Street is the low spot in the neighborhood, and with a nearby sinkhole no longer working, his land, as well as his neighbor’s, had become the neighborhood retention pond.

Their neighbor, Danielle Luntz and her household have spent roughly $40,000 on damage from her property flooding since 2020, including replacing her floors twice due to black mold. In years since the flooding started, conditions have only worsened.

A solution could be in sight, however. Lange and Luntz recently pleaded with the Clarksville City Council to help. Councilperson Deanna McLaughlin introduced an amendment to the fiscal year 2025 City of Clarksville budget to remove $500,000 that had been designated for new drainage mitigation to instead study the drainage mitigation in the areas of Elberta Drive and Love Street. The amendment was approved 11-1.

While Lange welcomes the city taking action this year, he said this problem was brought to their attention years earlier.

Buildable with no restrictions

In 2019, before purchasing the property, Lange said, he researched what restrictions might be on the land. That included visiting and speaking with county and city departments, since the property had moved into city limits in the early 1980s. He said he visited Montgomery County Building and Codes, the Clarksville Gas and Water Department and the County Archives to see if any water easements, or anything similar, had been placed on the property. “There was nothing that represented that problem,” Lange said.

He went to the Clarksville-Montgomery County Regional Planning Commission and the Clarksville Street Department to find out whether the lot was buildable with no restrictions. “I knew if there were any restrictions on the lot, they would tell me. … They told me it was buildable with no restrictions,” Lange said.

After that initial downpour and flooding, Lange was told he couldn’t build up the property elevation. “I told them there was no documentation of that before I purchased this property,” Lange said.

‘Did I buy a lot that I should have never built on?’

Shortly after this conversation, another storm passed through Clarksville, and afterward Lange noticed the storm water had come up to the same level on his barn, as well as his neighbor’s fence. After taking a walk around the neighborhood to see where the water might be coming from, Lange noticed a drainage pipe at Love and Hayes Street.

Clarksville Street Department Director David Smith told Clarksville Now the area in question drains through an easement to a topographical feature just north of that intersection.

However, according to Lange, instead of the stormwater being taken across Hayes Street like it’s supposed to, it was running parallel with the roadway. “The water should have been going across the street, but instead it was coming across me and my neighbor,” Lange said. “I thought to myself, ‘Did I buy a lot that I should have never built on?'”

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With the water running parallel to Hayes Street and the inability to change the elevation on his property, Lange decided to install a 16-inch pipe in his front yard to get the water off himself and Luntz. He was told by the Street Department he would need to go larger with an 18-inch pipe, and he did.

But it didn’t make a difference, and the properties flooded again. “The pipe was too small to suppress the water, even at 18 inches,” Lange said.

‘My lot fell victim to sewer and growth’

In 2021, Lange said, he had a sit-down meeting with representatives from the Street Department, and he said they told him that a few years earlier they redirected the water to go onto his property because the sinkhole a street over had stopped working. Those representatives are no longer with the Street Department, according to Lange.

Lange said he asked if they had gotten permission from the previous property owner to do that. Lange said they told him they didn’t need permission because they were putting in sewer infrastructure. “So, in other words, my lot fell victim to sewer and growth,” Lange said.

Knowing this, Lange stopped all work on his development. “I was to the point where I was scared to do anything. I was putting money in a retention basin,” Lange said.

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A year later, Lange spoke with Building and Codes, and he was told he needed to either push forward building his home or tear down everything he’d built thus far.

“I said I would push forward, and ever since … for three years I’ve pushed forward,” Lange said. “Now, I have a house that’s ready to occupy; it’s passed every inspection. I’m going to live there. I have too much invested to turn around and go backward. … Even if I tore it down, it doesn’t fix the problem.”

Lange also discovered that according to elevation maps from the Clarksville Gas & Water Department, his and his neighbor’s houses are in the lowest point in elevation in the neighborhood, at 510 feet.

City of Clarksville reviewing situation

Luntz said she’s grateful the City Council is taking action. However, she said she’s not sure how far that $500,000 in funding will go between the two areas the city plans to study.

City Mayor Joe Pitts told Clarksville Now the city is looking at options for an engineering firm to evaluate. Pitts said this is a priority for the city and they will move forward when they have a viable solution.

“What we can speak to is the fact that we are responding now, where we have the authority and physical means to do so. It has taken some time, and focused attention, to build the capacity within our Street Department to better-manage these types of issues. Now, we have a set of comprehensive working strategies that are in play and will be shared later this year in a formal presentation to the City Council,” Pitts said.

Smith confirmed that the Street Department is in the early stages of working up that presentation.

Correction: The spelling of Elberta Drive has been corrected.

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