Front Range
Jeffco development needs a drainage plan before water finds one
A Porch Note from Colorado Porch — plain-English local details for all 64 Colorado counties.
Water always finds a route downhill, with or without your permission. The whole point of the county’s storm drainage rules is to settle where that route goes before a project breaks ground.
The storm drainage criteria are the minimum design standards for storm drainage facilities, and they reach a wide range of projects. Subdivisions, rural clusters, rezonings, site development plans, site approvals, land disturbance permits, and other development or construction filed under the land development rules all have to meet them. The requirement is built into the review, not bolted on afterward.
Drainage is easy to file away as a big-subdivision problem, but it is not. A modest change to a slope, a new patch of hard surface, a rerouted ditch, or a fresh driveway cut can redirect runoff straight toward a neighbor’s yard, a county road, or a creek that did not used to take that water. Once it is graded in, that flow path is stubborn.
The practical move is to look at the drainage criteria early and ask what level of analysis or design your specific project triggers. Settle the flow path while it is still lines on a page, and the graded ground tends to behave once the work is done.
Sources
Official or primary sources used for this note. Local details can change, so confirm before acting.