Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD)

[ScreamingViking]

Posting because this issue may be (is likely, it seems to me) related to growth around the airport... and IMO the city needs to think about this stuff, because it will become a larger problem over time as more land is developed.

Looking at that image, it's not hard to imagine why this home got flooded.

Hopefully the coming mitigations will help. Though historically, there was little understanding that building anything on a flood plain was a bad idea...


Floodwaters keep coming. Insurance company won’t pay. Who is to blame? This Glanbrook couple points to a giant new development
‘We’re tapped out,’ Dickenson Road couple says of ruined basement

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-re...e5db74e-05f4-59cb-b67f-ea53dddefdd8.html

Teviah Moro
The Hamilton Spectator
Wednesday, August 2, 2023



Greg and Monica Sheldrake dread those days when heavy rain is in the forecast.

The Glanbrook couple are the outdoorsy types, so they’re not afraid of getting wet.

It’s their basement that keeps them up at night.

Flooding has become all-too-familiar as development builds up in the Mount Hope airport commercial district.

In particular, the Sheldrakes point to Amazon’s massive warehouse off Upper James Street, just around the corner from their Dickenson Road home.

During heavy rain, a torrent flows from there and inundates their front yard and driveway.

“There’s so much water, so fast, it’s mind-blowing, honestly,” Monica says.

A few weeks ago, Greg recalls, he watched helplessly as water pooled in the driveway and flooded the basement during a bad storm that packed a small tornado.

It’s ruined, and after more than one drenching, their insurance company won’t cover the damage, they say.

“It’s just so deflating,” Greg laments. “Like we’re not putting more money into this place. Like we’re done. We’re tapped out.”

The Sheldrakes say flooding has been an issue since around 2009, when developers started building and altering land by their home.

But when Amazon’s 855,000-square-foot warehouse — where a golf club’s ponds and grass once absorbed water “like a sponge” — opened in early 2022, it became a serious problem, Greg points out.

“This was approved and it’s new development. So why are we having new development carry on when we can’t deal with the water downstream?”

...

Coun. Mark Tadeson agrees the former golf course helped water drain and calls commercial development a “contributing factor” to the flooding in the area.

But the new Glanbrook councillor, who has fielded the Sheldrakes’ concerns, suggests the city could help provide some relief.

“Public works is involved. They’re aware of the situation and they’re working on mitigating factors.”

The area has a “history of flooding” with properties in a natural floodplain of a local watercourse, Gavin Norman, the city’s manager of infrastructure planning, told The Spectator.

Nonetheless, “it appears, from residents’ concerns, that the problem is increasing,” Norman added.

“By nature of the low-lying lands, some of the properties may experience property flooding during significant events.”

Development is obliged to control stormwater discharge from sites, so the “rate of flow leaving the site does not exceed pre-development conditions,” Norman noted.

But “due to the ongoing concerns from residents,” the city has hired a consultant to evaluate a storm pond at the southwest corner of Upper James and Dickenson.

As well, the city’s installation of a new sanitary trunk sewer along Dickenson in the months ahead will include culvert replacement and ditch cleaning, “which may provide some improvement.”

The city is also conducting an environmental assessment for the reconstruction of Dickenson, west of Upper James, that examines stormwater runoff at the intersection and ways to improve drainage. The study is expected to wrap up in August 2024.

Others on Dickenson, whose properties back onto a farmer’s field, are also concerned about flooding, with water pooling in backyards during storms.

Some speculate changes to a neighbour’s property, including an altered culvert, may have interfered with water flow.

Norman said public works staff are trying to determine if “there are other contributing factors that could be exacerbating the issue,” including the condition of the local watercourse and more frequent heavy downpours.

...