The City of Ripon’s Wilma Avenue Driveway Project involves three driveway entrances in the 500 block of Wilma Avenue.

During intense storms, those properties would get more than their fair share of water runoff flowing from the gutters into that area.

At Tuesday’s Ripon City Council meeting, City Administrator Kevin Werner explained the reason for that.

“The houses were built below the elevation of the roadway,” he said of this older area of town.

Werner added that the city has since made improvements to the driveways as well as improvements downstream to remedy the problem.

Included was the city’s on-call sidewalk contractor removing the existing drive over curb/gutter while replacing it with a curb that extends to the current edge of the asphalt, in turn, providing a slope that’s not too steep as that of the previous one.

This drive-over curb would also have pipe located along the gutter flow line to allow storm water to pass, according to the staff report provided by Public Works Director James Pease.

One property in the area did not have a concrete driveway. It was proposed that the current drive-over be removed and replaced with an asphalt drive-over curb with a more reasonable slope.

Another property owner — upon evaluating the proper use of the property — opted to leave the driveway entrance as-is, for now.

Cost on the Sidewalk Maintenance Repair is “not to exceed” $15,000 from the Street & Road Operating Fund.