A real estate company with a dozen townhouses on Charleston's West Side claims that while city workers were trying to fix a landslide above the townhouses, they created a flooding problem below.
Sines Enterprises, which owns 12 townhouses on a part of Mathews Avenue known as Woodsedge Way, filed a lawsuit against the city of Charleston, the city Sanitary Board and two engineering firms, Potesta & Associates and K&N Contracting, that were hired to remediate the landslide on Grandview Drive.
According to the lawsuit, filed Dec. 30 in Kanawha Circuit Court, the real estate company learned in early 2014 that the landslide had been caused by a significant leak of storm and sewer water.
City officials hired Potesta to begin a remediation and stabilization project, according to the lawsuit.
The city and the company allegedly directed that all trees, vegetation and soil be removed from the landslide area. The soil was to be replaced with a clay-type substance from the CVS construction site on Oakwood Road, according to the complaint.
By compacting the clay-type substance, "all storm water was diverted downhill with no infiltration into the previously porous natural absorption of trees and vegetation that had been removed," the complaint states.
A substantial increase in storm water allegedly inundated the townhouses and surrounding property. As a result, a storm drain on the Sines' property was completely blocked.
Upon request to clean out the drain, the lawsuit says, the city and Sanitary Board refused. City attorney Paul Ellis couldn't immediately be reached Tuesday but has said he won't comment on pending litigation.
"The City and The Sanitary Board's failure to safely and properly maintain the storm water and sewerage pipes and drainage systems causing storm and sewer water to flow without control within the collection system were the proximate causes of the Grandview Drive Landslide," the lawsuit states.
The townhouses will continue to experience flooding until the problems are fixed, according to the complaint.
Sines asks that the defendants be required to pay for the installation of a new drainage system with larger pipes to accommodate the larger amount of storm water run-off. The lawsuit also asks for compensation for aggravation and alleged property damage, among other things.
Sines is represented by Charleston attorneys Guy Bucci and Ashley Lynch. The case is assigned to Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.