YOUNGSVILLE, La. (KLFY) – Last Thursday, the Youngsville city council unanimously adopted an ordinance requiring residential and commercial developments to provide a 25-year detention in their drainage design.

The detention could be a retention pond, detention pond, or underground drainage system.

“We’re the fastest growing city and we have a lot of development lot of impervious areas, a lot of run off and we knew that we needed to hold more run off within our city,” said city engineer Pamela Gonzales Granger.

The regulations had been drawn up months before the storm hit.

But after the flooding, Mayor Ken Ritter introduced the ordinance, making it a priority.

“With the storm, they decided to pull that ordinance and to make those changes now,” said Granger, “But it was in the works since we adopted the master plan in January and in February started on municode. So it’s been in the works for a while.”

While the ordinance wouldn’t have kept hundreds of homes from being destroyed during the flood, it’s a step in the right direction for future storms.

“What we saw was a large amount of volume, of course, and in no way shape or form this ordinance would it have stopped what we saw,” said Granger, “But we do know we had a lot of water. And as we continue to develop we see more and more the water has to have somewhere to go.”

Although this requirement is only for new developments, according to Granger they do have plans for existing developments as well.