‘RESILIENT HAMPTON’ UNVEILED
Plan will tackle water management and resiliency initiatives
HAMPTON — The more Hampton views water as an asset and less as a problem, the better, according to one environmental architect.
A plan to contain water coming from flooding parking lots, city streets and ditches after storms needs to have a way to use it for good, experts say.
“Once we catch the water, where do we want it to go?” said J. David Waggonner, a New Orleans-based environmental architect who addressed a few dozen attendees during a community meeting Tuesday. “You have an asset we have to learn how to use.”
Along with Waggonner, city planners unveiled three prototype designs for its “Resilient Hampton” project during an open house at Hampton Roads Convention Center.
One design idea, called the Big Bethel Blueway, would create a walking path over a ditch that loosely runs parallel to Big Bethel Road, with a water storage element and native plants.
The hope is to transform the ditch, which contributes to flooding near residential neighborhoods, and create a linear park and recreational amenity for the community,
said David Imburgia, the city’s resiliency officer.
Another calls for redesigning a parking lot on Convention Center Boulevard, and a third calls for elevating some roadways in the Coliseum Center neighborhood — which often floods during storms— and creating cavities to collect water.
Each design incorporates ways to collect and retain the water, as well as methods to channel it away from flood prone areas.
Hampton also announced the coming parcel grant program, Imburgia said. The program, which officially begins in February, will be available to residents in certain neighborhoods to help them fund redesign projects on their property that can help stave off neighborhood flooding.
The meeting was one of several community sessions Hampton officials have been hosting over the past year to gather input and feedback for its citywide “Resilient Hampton” campaign.
The endeavor includes landscape redesign efforts toward mitigating recurring flooding and storm water pollution, with an end goal of finding better ways to live with water and manage sea level rise. The targeted area for the pilot projects are within the Newmarket Creek watershed.
City officials staged the meeting in half-hour presentations delivered by Terry O’Neill, director of community development, and Waggonner in one room. In another space, attendees also could view design layouts and aerials on panel boards gallery-style and could ask questions.
The city also gathered feedback from attendees. The data will be presented to the Hampton City Council for review and final approval during its meeting Jan. 22. Hampton will begin crafting the engineering plans and seek bids for construction work that could begin in 2021.
The city has set aside $12 million in its fiscal 2020 capital plan for the first bundle of pilot projects, Imburgia said.
Since 2015, Hampton has sought guidance and has teamed up with outside experts including Bosch Slabbers, a Netherlands-based landscape architect firm, New Orleans-based Waggonner & Ball, and Moffatt & Nichols in Norfolk to find long-term solutions against sea level rise.
Last year, when Hampton planners and partners brainstormed during a workshop, they came up with rough sketches and concepts.
“If they can get enough of the neighborhood to help, it could make a difference,” said Barbara Krumper, a master gardener who attended the meeting.
Loye Spencer also liked the effort and suggests that the city use experts to help with individuals planning projects on their properties, such as a master gardener and a master naturalist, she said.
Each design incorporates ways to collect and retain the water, as well as methods to channel it away from flood prone areas.