Kaysville residents angered by city’s response to flooding

KAYSVILLE, Utah — More than a week after a blockage in a drainage system and resulting flood that left a massive pit in their neighborhood, some homeowners and the developer were upset Friday over the city’s response to the disaster.

Crews were still working to clean up after the ordeal that left behind millions of dollars in damage in the Orchard Ridge Estates development.

“We now refer to it as the pit of despair,” Brooke Schulthies said as she sat on her porch Friday afternoon and looked at it all. “We still don’t have running water and they’ve told us we won’t for months.”

Schulthies said residents received an upsetting email from Kaysville City on Thursday evening.

“We have communicated with our insurer and they have advised us that the responsibility for repairs to damaged improvements and effected (sic) areas both within the subdivision and downstream will be the responsibility of the applicable developers,” stated the email from the city, which was shared with KSL 5. “They recommend that homeowners first file claims with their homeowner’s insurance, then with Ivory Homes. You may also wish to file a claim with the City. We recognize that this is a difficult situation and hope that the City and the applicable parties can plan and coordinate together to help accomplish the necessary repairs as quickly as possible.”

Schulthies said the city had not been responsive to her and her husband or to other homeowners since the disaster and to receive that communication was “really difficult.”

“We do personally feel like they are culpable for some of this,” Schulthies said. “I mean, they have engineers that it is their entire job to say, ‘yes, this stormwater system is adequate for this area.’”

Ivory Homes also said Friday it “takes exception” to the city and its insurer assigning responsibility to the developer.

“The water and all of the debris that caused the blockage came from a neighboring property, so the idea that these owners should file a claim against us—we just see that as the city trying to abdicate responsibility,” Chris Gamvroulas, president of Ivory Development said in a phone interview with KSL 5.

Gamvroulas said the developer was “blindsided” and “dumbfounded” by the city’s stance.

“We have been reaching out to them through various channels since (before April 12) when we noticed that there was a problem 4 days before the event,” Gamvroulas said. “Their staff has just been uncommunicative with us.”

Kaysville Mayor Tamara Tran confirmed the city’s email in a brief phone call with KSL 5 Friday evening.

She acknowledged the difficulty of the ongoing situation and affirmed that was the latest information Kaysville City had received from its insurer.

“I realize that there is still a lot yet to be determined,” Tran said.

Tran said city leaders would once again meet about the situation on Monday.

Ivory Homes in an additional statement sent to KSL Friday said if it discovers “any information that suggests Ivory Homes constructed the road or storm water system negligently, we will not hesitate to own that culpability and make it right.”

The statement said the company had not uncovered “any such information to date.”

Schulthies said she was grateful for the response from Ivory Homes, which she said had offered an apartment to stay if she and her husband wanted.

She said she wished the city to date had been as helpful.

“We’d expect at least something like that from the city—not saying, ‘oh this is our fault, we’ll help you’ but saying ‘it doesn’t matter right now who’s at fault, you are without a home, can we help you?’” Schulthies said. “At the very least we’d like some acknowledgment from the city that we exist, that we’re going through this.”