As CT Post scribe Jordan Grice reports, flooding in the South End has been a barrier to development. About $50 million, however, in federal flood protection is underway.
In a new plan to address flooding in the South End of Bridgeport, city officials see an opportunity to kick-start private investment and development in the waterfront area.
“I think there are many things that our project is directly addressing but also I think we’ve been able to bring together a lot of different stakeholders and spark conversations within the neighborhood that are leading to other projects as well,” said Rebecca French, Director of National Disaster Resilience and Rebuild by Design for the Connecticut Department of Housing and project manager for Resilient Bridgeport.
After several years of drafting, the state Department of Housing released a draft of its plans for the addressing the ongoing flood risks in the South End. The proposal is part of an environmental impact evaluation funded by a pair of national resiliency grants under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery following Hurricane Sandy.
Full story here.
Featured image Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media
Sounds nice but it seems theoretical to me. Good luck.
Didn’t David Kooris get involved with this?
I don’t think “flooding” is the problem. It’s the decrepit housing and a perceived lack of safety that is the real problem.
Frank, there is a flooding problem, you have underground rivers that overflow directly into homes, backyards and streets. After a heavy rainfall just drive down Iranistan Ave towards Seaside Park.
Ron,
Thanks for that info. Reminds of that 7 inch deluge that we had in the summer. My cellar got not a drop yet so many others were inundated.
Frank, the Burnham River runs under Seaside Village on Burnham St, at the end of the street you see that water is still running on the sidewalk, there are red traffic cones around the area.
This is wonderful. I love to see progress in my city.
Stephanie Thompson should run for the Democratic Town Committee and Bridgeport City Council but there’s a problem because nobody knows what district she votes in. Stephanie Thompson has that she likes to comment on issues concerning Bridgeport.
Anyone can comment on Bridgeport but I’m the only one with a self-funded, Bridgeport-themed, TRIBUTE website. It used to be a perfect pearl but then things changed.
Switched from Gilbey’s to Bombay Sapphire?
Nob Hill area (Virginia Ave/Louisianan Ave) is built on a swamp. Get a good rain, expect flash floods.
Little off subject….But congratulations to the opening of the EastSide/Newfield Branch of the Bridgeport Public Library. It looks GREAT. Hopefully,this will be the beginning of a renaissance of the East Side.(However,just to my two cents in). IMHO,there needs to be some attention to the housing infrastructure in the East End(and throughout Bridgeport…such as the West End) What good is a library,supermarket etc if people can’t live in the housing in the area
Good show.
The only thing preventing much of the Upper East Side from becoming a permanent lake is the Remington Woods/”Lake Success” forest, which is the last, natural/EFFECTIVE flood-control barrier protecting a very large area of the Upper East Side and East End…
Otherwise, much of northern Bridgeport has become a dangerous, flood-prone area because of the state policy of turning a blind eye toward upstream, overdevelopment in Trumbull, along Bridgeport’s border (which development is only possible because of Trumbull’s ability to pirate Bridgeport infrastructure and services…). Indeed, Bridgeport police boats had to evacuate homes in Lake Forest in the vicinity of the Scinto development in Trumbull (Oakview Drive/Old Town Road) on the Bridgeport border during the September 28 floods, where several hundred units of high density housing were recently approved for construction — which means worse flooding in the Old Town Road-to-Lakeside Drive/Woodbine Circle area of Lake Forest (where a woman died from drowning in flood waters some years ago, with the problem only becoming worse in the years since that fatality)… AND THE STATE DEEP AND OUR STATE AND LOCAL REPRESENTATION FOR THIS AREA HAVE CHOSEN TO IGNORE/REMAIN SILENT ON THIS PROBLEM (E.G., STATE SENATOR/MAYORAL CADNIDATE MARILYN MOORE, STATE REP./MAYORAL CANDIDATE CHARLES STALWORTH, COUNCILPERSON CHRISTIE, COUNCILPERSON LEE… MAYOR GANIM)…
So: It’s an excellent, too-long-delayed project to address flooding/climate change contingencies in the South End, but it must not be forgotten by city and state development planners/DEEP that there are great needs for flood-control/development control measures related to very serious flooding/climate-change contingencies throughout the city…
It’s good that this is being addressed. That the state and the feds have to step in is saddening. If Little Joe Ganim and his goombah Mario the King of Madison Avenue actually gave a shit or two about the people of the city of Bridgeport the municipal coffers would have enough gilders to take care of this. As it is Ganim has been up to his old tricks, handing out six-figure city jobs as political favors. One has to wonder if the recipients are required to kick back a percentage of their fabulous new salaries as tithe to Joe and Mario.