My name is Joseph Tillman, I am a resident of District 6 and owner of the property at 1800 Holly Hill Road. The reason for this letter is in regards to the amount of water that drains on to my property from the city storm drains.

These drains are located on several surrounding streets collecting run off from over a hundred thousand square feet of roadway, as well as from the properties located on these streets. There is just too much water draining onto my property.

I have filed two complaints about the amount of water that drains on my property and have not yet gotten a response.

The problem is that the easements are not large enough and neither is the main culvert that drains the water off my property. This causes the water to back up into the yard. Water also backs up into my neighbors’ yards as well.

On April 2, 2009, debris blocked the main culvert that drains off my property, causing my lot to flood. This caused the crawlspace of my home to flood.

I have come up with several ideas to this problem and how it might be solved. The storm drains and easements are on the City right-of-way, so I am limited to what I can do with them.

One might ask why a person would purchase this house on this property. However, the question should be why someone would sign off on a building permit or a certificate of occupancy knowing the problem with this lot.

This property was given a building permit, a house was built on the property and someone would have had to purchase this house. That person just happened to be me.

My understanding is that property taxes are based on the value of the property. If this issue is not resolved, the value of my property will significantly decrease. I assume, therefore, that my property taxes will also decrease.

I am not asking that the council perform any repairs to my property itself. I have plans of adding dirt to the property to bring up the ground level on my property. But this alone will not solve the problem. I am simply requesting that they make the necessary repairs to the drainage systems that is within the right-of-way that belongs to the city to prevent any further serious damage to my property.

Joseph Tillman

Milledgeville