Designs detailed for keeping Stockade dry

City begins to nail down best options for FEMA funding

The city moved a step closer Thursday to settling on the preferred design option for dealing with flooding woes and ice jams along the Mohawk River in the historic Stockade.

About 50 people — mostly Stockade residents — watched a Powerpoint presentation detailing the pros and cons of the 10 options, which included the construction of levees and flood gates as well as elevating properties — by themselves or along with the streets.

“We cannot raise the streets without raising the houses, “said Tom Burgess of Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects, a firm that specializes in architecture, planning and historic preservation.

He was joined by Ian Law of PLACE Alliance, another architectural and planning company, on a panel of other professional experts working on the Fema-funded project.

The state Department of Homeland Security is also funding the effort. Two other meetings were held earlier in the week.

Phase 1, which costs $1.2 million, is supposed to be completed by June 2020. After that, FEMA could award Schenectady more than $7.5 million for the construction work.

For some of the designs to happen, all the residents on flood-prone streets like Ingersoll Avenue, North Street and North Ferry Street would have to agree.

But there does not have to be full buy-in for property owners to raise their dwellings to a height that the design experts said would be about 9.5 feet off the ground.

One of the options discussed Thursday at the First Reformed Church called for the creation of a new street. That sparked a debate about how allowing greater access to Riverside Park could affect residents’ quality of life and their ability to find parking.

Project Manager Margaret Irwin cautioned that, in the end, the winning project would have to be for the overall good and integrity of the neighborhood.

“It has to be thought of as a neighborhood strategy, and we have to try to reach a consensus,” she added.

Irwin also reminded the crowd that the project is intended to protect homes in the 100-year flood plain.

Schenectady Development Director Kristin Diotte said officials hoped to winnow down the 10 designs on the table to three or four, and then work on a cost-benefit analysis before selecting the most popular idea by the end of the year.