Bridgeport's South End is home to the University of Bridgeport. Image courtesy of Google Maps
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.
Most land in the South End is said by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to have a 1 percent chance each year of a serious flood, which guides state statutes. Connecticut agencies have ruled that projects in a flood zone that fail to provide means of evacuation will be blocked from receiving state funding – including for the cleanup of contaminants.
For projects like the Remington Shaver site at 60 Main St., which has long been slated for redevelopment into waterfront apartments, such regulations have stalled its transformation since 2016.
Bridgeport received more than $50 million in federal grants in the last four years to funding the flood protection project in the South End.
The plan calls for a coastal flood defense system near the University of Bridgeport that would provide a protection from coastal storm surges, and green infrastructure improvements like pump stations. Closer to the shoreline, French said, University Avenue would be elevated and turned into a needed flood evacuation route.
Changes to the neighborhood would essentially, reclassify the South End with FEMA, making it a lower risk area, and easing the path to public-private developments.
“We would basically get a new map, and that map would then have the area behind the flood wall,” French said.
Barring any setbacks, officials suggest that changes to the South End could begin by next year and reach completion by 2022 which is the deadline for spending the grant funding.
