Eastside Construction Creates Flooding Concerns

Neighbors in the Ben Van Clark Neighborhood are anticipating spring storms with trepidation. Last year the area was hit twice by major flooding and now folks fear a massive construction project in their neighborhood will make the problem even worse.
 
Ben Van Clark Community President Barbara Oglesby says her neighbors are concerned about many things when it comes to the big federal affordable housing project under construction in her neighborhood. “They’re so close. There’re too many houses. That's too many people, what kind of people going to be moving in here?”
 
For more than a block along Waters Avenue from before Gwinnett Street to Graydon Street, a line of new apartments grows from concrete bases. This time last year this whole block was vacant and grassy meaning when heavy rains fell, they soaked up some of the overflow. Now that they are covered, neighbors believe things will be worse if the floods come again. “This area seems to be build up higher than the areas around it” Oglesby says of the project, “that, to me, seems like it's automatic cause for flooding.” Gwinnett Street neighbor Chester Dunham echoes those fears. “It is a real concern you know because right now when it’s a downfall of rain, a hard rain, constant rain, it flood this whole street out.” Dunham owns three buildings on the street all suffered some damage last year.
 
As part of being On Your Side, we took neighbors concerns to the City’s Facilities Maintenance Director Bob Scanlon. “It’s not going to make it any better,” he says of the new construction’s effect on drainage.
 
Scanlon points out that the city is actively working to solve the flooding issues in the Ben Van Clark Neighborhood but says a comprehensive fix will not be in place by this summer. However, he says the area should see incremental flood relief as other drainage work currently under construction come online over the next several months.