NATCHEZ — Daisy Street will soon get a pedicure of sorts for its last 700 feet.

City Engineer David Gardner said the project, which will help alleviate street flooding issues by installing a storm drain, should have begun in June or July, but a few legal issues have caused a delay.

In order for water to drain off of the street when it rains, he said, a pipe would have to be installed underground, but there were a few parcels of land for which the city didn’t own the right of way.

“A lot of the people who live in the houses (on Daisy Street) don’t own them,” Gardner said. “The thing about it is, a lot of (the owners) are out of state, and you have to send papers to them via mail.”

Now, though, just two parcels are left for the city to procure, he said, and the city attorney is well on his way to getting the job done.

Three or four weeks remain before the city owns the right of ways on the remaining pieces of land, Gardner said, and once it’s obtained, the city will get permission to begin advertising the project.

“There are two or three months minimum before construction,” he said. “The project itself should be about four-months long.”

The residents of Daisy Street will be affected, Gardner said — there’s just no way around it.

“But with the way we’ve got it sequenced, there should be a way in and a way out at all times,” he said. “Hopefully, people will be patient.”

The project is being paid for with a $370,000 Community Development Block Grant, which is a federal grant designed to aid lower-income areas, Gardner said. Of the $370,000, the city paid $165,000 in match funds, he said.

“CDBG grants are really competitive,” he said. “The more money the city can put into (CDBG’s projects), the better chance you have of receiving those funds.”

The project also requires that a waterworks pipeline be lowered along with the street, which will cost the department an additional $50,000, Gardner said.