When You're in a Hole, and It’s Filling With Water, Stop Digging

New construction in “Lake Olney,” a flood zone in Norfolk. Source: WTKR TV3

Snapshot: At some point, as the reality of climate change impacts dawns, you’d hope folks would stop doing the same old things that put people in harm’s way - like allowing development in floodplains where the flood risk is so obvious you can point to the year when the property will go underwater.

In the coastal regions of Virginia, and around the nation, we’re in a hole, it’s filling with water, and we need to stop digging ourselves in deeper.

Eastern Virginia’s flooding on January 3rd exposed the folly of “business as usual” development in Norfolk, as is happening in many cities. In downtown Norfolk, a construction site (above) showed the impacts of a storm surge that was about 3.5 feet above our full moon/new moon tides. Unfortunately, this is what this site will look like every day in coming decades, leaving the taxpayers of Norfolk with an expensive legacy.

This site is an excellent place to explore the challenges facing built out cities like Norfolk as they struggle to address their flooding challenges.

Backstory: With the highest rate of relative sea level rise on the Atlantic coast, Norfolk, Virginia, no longer needs a big storm to cause flooding. On January 3, 2022, we experienced a strong wind from the north on a new moon that caused our water to stack up at the morning high tide. Water levels rose about 3.5 feet above what we normally see on the “spring tide” at the new and full moons. The flooding disrupted the region and exposed some problems with our “business as usual” approach to development in Norfolk.

The part of Norfolk pictured above is known as “Lake Olney,” named after the frequently-flooded West Olney Road that borders this site to the right in the picture. This area is notorious for flooding and is the final resting place for many flooded cars, like the two in the picture above.

This is where a 250 unit apartment complex is being built, on the construction site pictured. This project is allowed under the current land use designations in Norfolk. The site, marked in red in the picture below on the map, is in a coastal flood plain. Norfolk’s new resilience zoning ordinance requires that the first floor apartments be 3’ above the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) base flood elevation or about 9' above ground level. The garage, however, is at ground level.

Developer’s map of project site.

This site is located in the center channel of an old creek - Smith Creek or Paradise Creek, depending on the map - that was filled in around 1900 to allow development. The problem is these old “legacy” creeks are still tidally connected and the higher tidal waters run underground, along the old stream beds and, as water seeks its own level, these areas get flooded from underneath. Higher water runs “backwards,” up and out of stormwater drains and cracks in the pavement, flooding the street and intersections, as in the photo.

These legacy creek beds also experience greater subsidence of the land than surrounding areas since fill and rubble compacts as does the old marsh peat layers underneath. As a result, rain water runs back into the lower lying outlines of the old creek bed and floods those areas. For larger buildings these areas require structural piles to be driven to stabilize them, like the pile driver is doing in the picture at the top of this blog. The map below shows these old creek beds and the location of this construction site, in an area where, as the caption reads, “the water returns to its old home.”

Location of the construction site on the legacy creekbed - Source: Inside Climate News

Throughout the contractor’s design process, plan review by Norfolk city staff, and the planning commission’s consideration of the construction permit, future sea level rise and increased rainfall intensity were not considered. Only current flooding is discussed in the contractor’s notes and, in a concession to that flooding, the garage entrance was put on the “high” side of the property. The developer noted in a newspaper article on the site, “It would take a hurricane or large nor’easter to flood all the streets around the property to limit access. That is a very rare event,”

Today, yes, but what happens to this site in the future? With advances in mapping and predication we can answer that question.

What will the future bring?

Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk has a sea level rise viewer that uses the NOAA intermediate high sea level rise projections, the accepted rate in Hampton Roads, also approved by the City of Norfolk. This viewer shows what this site will look like in 2060:

Norfolk Construction Site in 2060 - ODU Coastal Virginia Sea Level Rise Viewer

This projection shows that most of the site will be flooded daily, as will the surrounding roads. The red roads and buildings are those that will be affected by constant nuisance flooding and the deep blue areas are standing water.

Add to this tidal flooding the roughly 18% increase in rainfall intensity that has been observed in recent years in Virginia. The storm water system in Norfolk is designed to the old rainfall standards and is under-sized and overwhelmed by today’s rainfall, increasing flooding in low-lying areas like “Lake Olney.”

These factors will combine to compromise this site in coming decades. The residences, 9’ above ground level, will be safe but no one will be able to access the building or garage: by 2060 this building will be unusable. That “very rare event” that the contractor said it would take to flood the surrounding streets will, by 2060, be a constant condition.

Prior to that, as nuisance flooding increases, the City of Norfolk will be called upon to make major upgrades for flood control in this area, in response to complaints by residents of this building as well as surrounding residences and businesses. The City will be asked to replace the storm water system in this part of the city. City taxpayers will be asked to raise Grace Street at the garage entrance when it begins to flood frequently by 2040. Millions of dollars will be spent in this area until it needs to be abandoned after 2060.

Alternatives?

In an ideal world, a better solution would have been to leave the property undeveloped and returned to some natural open space. It would not generate property and sales taxes but it would also not require millions of taxpayer dollars to be invested to maintain its usefulness. This is the focus of our effort to involve land trusts in our adaptation and retreat efforts.

To get a true estimate of the economics of this development decision, a life cycle cost analysis of the development should have been performed. Cities facing these decisions should look at projected tax revenues against required taxpayer expenses over the building’s useful life and only approve the project if the site returns more revenue than it costs to maintain services and access to the site. Cities should ask the developer to take future flood events into account and design around them, over the useful life of the building, which according to ODU’s projections seems to be only about 40 years.

The developer should have been asked to consider alternative uses, such as retail or office space, which have a shorter useful life cycle than residential uses and would have been a better fit for that site. Retail sites turn over more rapidly than residential ones and by the time the site was being challenged by flooding, it might be ready for a transition to open space.

Reality

In the real world of this development decision, these alternatives are not realistic and there was little Norfolk could do. The city’s hands were tied just as in every city facing greater future flood risk. First, the land did not need to be rezoned, so development rights were already in the property: the apartment building is a “by right” development. To block development, Norfolk would have had to buy out the developer or face a takings lawsuit. (Rezoning property is a different story and localities in Virginia CAN impose future conditions on those decisions, as shown in a recent decision by the City of Virginia Beach.)

Second, the building complied with all existing federal, state, and local stormwater and floodplain restrictions (remember that 9’ elevation above the FEMA base flood elevation?). It complied with Norfolk’s “Resilient Zoning Ordinance.” Norfolk could re-write its zoning ordinances to restrict development at sites like this, but it still would face lawsuits were it to try to retroactively impose restrictions on sites like this with prior zoning conveying“by right” development. Again, the city would have to buy out the developer.

And the private sector supports the ‘status quo’ as well. As long as the developer can get financing and insurance for the building, there are no economic pressures to do things differently.

This snapshot of a single building in a single city illustrates the enormity of the task we face along our tidal shoreline to get ahead of the rising waters. Norfolk is a city that has a reputation for advanced resilience and planning work and has the most innovative resilience zoning ordinance in the country. Other cities will have an even harder time preventing development. It exposes where a city’s hands are tied and begins to point to where we need policy changes in both the public and private sectors that will keep unwise land use decisions from putting us deeper in a hole.

It also shows the need for us to be willing to start using the other “R” word in resilience: retreat.