Glen Ellyn asks for grant to help fund drainage project

Glen Ellyn officials are asking the state for a $570,000 grant to help fund construction of drainage outlets in the village’s Braeside area.

The project calls for installation of 13 drainage structures such as storm sewers, inlets and catch basins in rear-yard utility easements in a three-block residential neighborhood east of I-355 and north of Roosevelt Road. It would provide drainage outlets for stormwater runoff and sump pump discharges, Village Engineer Bob Minix said.

The village board on Monday voted unanimously to move the project forward, and also committed to funding a quarter of the project’s estimated cost of $760,000.

The local share would cover design and engineering, as well as a small part of construction, Minix said. The drainage improvements would be built between Surrey Drive and Heather Lane, Heather Lane and Londonberry Lane, and Londonberry Lane and Brighton Place.

The village applied for community development block grant funds for the drainage structures and a street lighting project in Braeside. Only the latter project was approved for funding last February.

And the drainage project wasn’t pursued for grant funds the following year because of a “hesitancy to commit matching funds of some $400,000 in engineering and local-share construction costs from a somewhat-stressed capital improvements project fund,” Minix wrote in a public works department memo.

But in December, the state announced that $48 million was available to communities affected by natural disasters in 2008 when many were declared a federal disaster area. Minix said grant awards from the CDBG Disaster Recovery “IKE” Public Infrastructure program typically range from $50,000 to $750,000.

Infrastructure improvements like storm drainage systems are particularly targeted, he said, and the grant program requires at least half of the funds be awarded to projects that benefit low- to moderate-income households.

Minix called the Braeside drainage improvements a “bona fide project for this program.”

He said he expects a response to the village’s grant application in April or May, when design work could then begin. Construction is targeted for March 2012.