The president of Pughsville Civic League views the drainage problem his community has always battled in straightforward terms.

“The water has nowhere to go,” Wayne White said earlier this month, driving past ditches still waterlogged despite no rain in recent days.

White, whose own backyard often becomes lake-like, idled his pickup around Pughsville Park, described by citizens at the ribbon-cutting almost 13 years ago as a dream come true for the community started by freed slaves.

But the middle of the park is wetlands now. “When they built the park, they cut off the ditch,” White said.

Just off Interstate 664 — where all the water would drain if it did — the community has a lot of what commonly are called paper streets. They appear on the map, and taxes on the lots lining them are generally paid, but they haven’t been developed with things like concrete curb and gutter and proper pavement.

According to city of Suffolk Public Works Director Eric Nielsen, Pughsville’s problems originate from the fact that the original developer didn’t provide the necessary infrastructure when the neighborhood was platted, in about the 1930s.

“They didn’t follow the normal process,” Nielsen said.

The city installed sewer and paved a few streets in the late 1980s to early 1990s, but a comprehensive drainage plan had never been completed, he said, and property owners kept developing lots without a paved street out front.

In 2006, the city assumed roadway maintenance from VDOT for an area including Pughsville. But the paper streets, which the state had not been maintaining, were not included, Nielsen said.

Prior to the takeover, the city had coordinated with VDOT to improve drainage in Pughsville, according to Nielsen, but “we were just chasing ourselves around trying to re-grade and clean ditches.”

When the comprehensive plan was finally completed in August 2012, it estimated full implementation would cost $21.4 million, “a huge number,” Nielsen said.

Phasing was recommended to City Council, he said. That’s scheduled to begin in fiscal 2016, Nielsen said, with $125,000 each from the city’s stormwater utility program and VDOT’s revenue sharing program.

But the quarter million is only a little more than 1 percent of the total cost outlined in the study. “The residents on the north end of the project area will see improved drainage,” Nielsen said.

Residents also talk about sidewalk curb and gutter, but Nielsen said that would be an additional expense.

Other areas of Suffolk were also developed without comprehensive drainage plans. Neislen cited Eclipse, but added that unlike Pughsville, that North Suffolk community has drainage-conducive topography like waterways and ravines.

“I believe the highest and lowest points in Pughsville are separated by 2 feet,” he said. “It’s basically flat, which has made it harder to come in and retrofit a fix.”

If a developer were to buy up enough paper streets to make the project financially feasible and funded the infrastructure privately, that would help the situation Pughsville faces, Nielsen said. “We have had discussions with some developers trying to (combine) some of the lots together,” he added.

Meanwhile, like others in his community, White just wishes Pughsville would receive equitable treatment.

“They came through and dug out ditches, which was a blessing,” he said. “But as far as major work to get rid of the water, we are a separate community.”