Taylor, MI Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Sec. 16.08(a) requires stormwater drainage to run through underground storm sewers built to the city's engineering standards and states plainly that all streets shall be required to have underground storm sewers. Subsection (b) extends that mandate to existing lots: any lot that currently has open stormwater drainage, including open ditch drainage along the street frontage, must be enclosed in belowground sewers. The city engineer, not the planning commission, holds the waiver authority here, and only on three narrow grounds: where existing site conditions make enclosure difficult from an engineering and construction standpoint, where enclosing a portion of a drain would create drainage problems for adjacent properties, or where the open drain falls under Wayne County jurisdiction and the county will not permit it to be enclosed, a scenario that matters given how many Taylor drains connect to the county system.

Subsection (c) carves out one categorical exception: the underground-sewer mandate shall not apply to stormwater detention or retention ponds, which may be open in accordance with Wayne County and city engineering standards, so a development can still use an open retention pond for stormwater management as long as it satisfies the separate county and city engineering criteria that already govern pond design elsewhere in the code.