The Washington City Council recently approved the site plans for two facility projects from a non-profit organization and the Washington Community School District.

The council approved the major site plan for Hospice of Washington County pending the city engineer’s verification, and the minor site plan for the district’s redesign of Stewart Elementary’s south parking area, as per the city’s planning and zoning commission’s recommendation. Hospice plans to remove the old southern portion of their existing building which contains their basement, adding a stormwater retention basin as well as expanding the north side of their facility and adding a larger parking area to accommodate the growing need for services.

As the organization has had water table issues where the southern portion of the building sits, they plan to turn that area into a bioswale to control stormwater runoff into the sewer system. City Administrator Brent Hinson commented on this improvement, “The bottom line is they’re able to use an already wet area to run all the stormwater on the site to, it’ll provide filtration and it’ll provide stormwater control that really doesn’t exist for the site right now. And it actually will perform beyond the requirements of our ordinance as far as the stormwater detention goes, so yeah, it’s a great plan.”

For Stewart Elementary, the district plans to redesign their south parking area to gain 59 additional spaces, add an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant parking area along the east side of the school, and construct a parking lot on the north part of the property which will eliminate one of the ball fields. Council Member Fran Stigers commented that available parking is a need at the school.