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News & Observer(Print Friendly ) : http : //www . . . /sunday/fronUStory/251362p - 238012c . html http : // 152 . 52 . 16 . 193 /standing/help/tools/_scripts/friendly - print . egi now but also where it will be when land upstream is paved and built upon . 36 The city and county will use their maps to decide where people can build . In many cases , developers will end up with less land for building , which made them leery of the new maps . But in the end , most came to see the mapping as necessary , said Mark Cramer , executive director of the Real Estate Building Industry Coalition , a local trade group . " Nobody wants to build a house that may flood , " Cramer said . Search for solutions The main approach to controlling storm water hasn ' t changed much since the Romans used pottery pipes to drain their streets more than 2 , 000 years ago . Modern curbs and gutters and concrete - lined drainage ditches are still designed to carry away rain as efficiently as possible . But often these drainage systems merely send more dirty water downstream . So local governments limit the amount of storm water that can flow from new development . Developers often can decide how to comply , and most choose storm water ponds , for decades the chief weapon against urban flooding . The ponds are supposed to collect water during big storms and slowly release it or let it soak into the ground . Shelley Lake in Raleigh and Lake Crabtree in Cary are big storm water ponds . Smaller versions dot shopping centers and subdivisions , tucked behind chain - link fences or dressed up with fountains . But the ponds are often forgotten or not maintained , said Rooney Malcom , a civil engineering professor at NCSU . Malcom shows a slide of what looks like a thicket at an apartment complex near Lake Johnson in Raleigh . It ' s actually an old storm water pond that has filled with debris and sprouted a forest . " I thought these were a great idea in the 70s , " he told a group of engineers last year . " But they are simplistic . " The ponds also do little to control nutrient pollutants , such as nitrogen , one of the big targets of the state ' s new Neuse River regulations , said Nancy White , head of extension programs at the NCSU School of Design . Those regulations , which eventually will cover the Cape Fear and other river systems , force developers and engineers to consider new techniques that cleanse storm water as well as slow it down . These include man - made wetlands and " blowretention cells , " in which plants and soil filter storm water . " We ' ll probably see a lot of new stuff out there , " said Mark Senior , a Raleigh storm water engineer . " People are going to have to start getting creative . " Some communities , including Cary and Durham , also strictly limit building in all or most of the flood plain . Builders greeted Durham ' s new restrictions with mixed reaction . Last year , developers and environmentalists agreed to curtail building in flood plains , but they split over how much to allow . In Wake County , most developers and builders support leaving 50400t buffers along streams untouched , as the state ' s Neuse River rules require , said Jim Wahlbrink , executive director of the Home Builders Association of Raleigh - Wake County . But Wahlbrink said they say the 100 - foot buffer recently adopted by Cary is overkill . Controlling storm water also can conflict with other goals , Wahlbrink noted . Local officials often require expensive curbs and gutters for aesthetic reasons , he said , while cheaper drainage ditches and swales would allow more water to soak into the ground . Keeping development away from streams also increases housing costs , Wahlbrink said , particularly in the Triangle , where much of the good , flat land already has been developed . " The ground left is a little more rugged , " he said . " You ' re going to have more areas that have stream areas running through them . That will greatly affect the values of those properties . " Floods to come Chapel Hill officials began to pay more attention to storm water even before the July storm . They ' ve looked at ways to reduce pavement by limiting parking in new commercial projects and allowing narrower streets in residential areas . They hired Fred Royal , the town ' s first storm water engineer , last winter and formed a committee to study the town ' s approach . 3 of 4 11 /27/2000 8 : 54 AM