City Manager Ed Craig (T-G File Photo by Clint Confehr) [Click to enlarge]

A public meeting will be held next month, probably June 19, to explain the City of Shelbyville's stormwater regulations, which were adopted in 2003 as a result of state and federal Municipal Separate Stormwater Sewer System (MS4) requirements.

City Manager Ed Craig announced the meeting during Thursday night's meeting of Shelbyville Municipal Planning Commission.

The rules were adopted by the city five years ago, but have come under specific criticism lately.

Planning Commission member Earl Pewitt said Thursday night that the rules had prevented a new development from being built on Madison Street because there was no room for a water detention pond. Pewitt said the ponds themselves are a bad idea because children or other passers-by could drown.

Planning Commission and City Council member Al Stephenson had criticized the detention pond rules at the planners' April meeting, saying it might discourage development.

But Craig said the rules only require that runoff be managed, so that it doesn't negatively impact neighboring property. That can be done with an above-ground detention pond, but it can also be done with other methods, such as underground detention. Planning Commission member Warren Landers said such underground detention has become the norm in fast-growing, heavily-developed Murfreesboro.

According to the stormwater page on the city's Web site, in areas with natural cover, only 10 percent of rainwater becomes runoff. But in urban areas, 55 percent of rainwater becomes runoff. Runoff gets channeled into streams and rivers on the surface and through stormwater drain systems.

Excessive runoff can cause erosion and pick up pollutants along the way, and it bypasses the natural filtration which applies to groundwater.

Craig said Shelbyville falls under MS4 regulations because both Duck River and Bomar Creek are impaired in the area.

Craig said some communities have much stricter stormwater regulations, based on 50- or 100-year record floods, while Shelbyville's is based only on 20-year flooding.

In other action Thursday night:

* Planners approved a site plan, submitted by Rod Parsons, for a nine-unit professional office complex at 635 N. Main St., the site of the former Senior Citizens Center/Living Stones Community Church building. That building will be torn down to make way for the complex. The planners' approval is contingent to approval of the planned unit development by the City Council.

* Planners approved a rezoning at 112 Wheeler St. from R-2 to R-4, both residential districts, so that owner Dwayne Sullivan can build a duplex. Sullivan had originally requested a rezoning to C-2 (highway service district), but planning and codes director Kip Green said that a commercial rezoning would open the door for commercial development to "creep down those back streets" from nearby North Main Street. A rezoning to R-4 would still allow the duplex but would not set a precedent for commercial development.

* Planners approved a site plan, submitted by Bobby Sanders, for two 1,800-square-foot commercial buildings at the intersection of Old Industrial Parkway and Railroad Avenue.

* Planners approved a site plan submitted by Matt Maloney for 10 residential apartment units, totalling 5,760 square feet, at the intersection of Tillman and Morton streets.