Comments
OttoBaker t1_iymi6ad wrote
It’s good to hear that (finally) a municipality might consider this much needed utility. Last I knew, there weren’t any municipalities that created one.
ahtasva t1_iyopx0g wrote
The level of cognitive dissonance in this article is off the charts. I bet every person interviewed has every sq inch of their property paved over. Then they are busy bitching to everyone who will listen about how the streets around their homes floods every time it rains🤷🏾♂️. No one wants to buy a 40 dollar trash can so 2x a week you see bare trash bags on the curbside for cats and rodents to tear apart spilling the contents on to the streets. Street cleaning barely happens and when it does there are always cars parked on the cleaning side. No one ties up the cardboard boxes they put out so if it rains or there is wind, there is paper and cardboard everywhere. Beer and drink bottles strewn at every street corner. The few trees we have on the sidewalks are being reduced every day. Don’t get me started on the trash, no one gives a fuck about where they throw trash! The streets here a worst than the so called third world country I was raised in. City does not bother about the blocked up catch basins. It took me 6 months of calling city hall to get the catch basin cleaning truck out to my street corner. The guy operating the truck tells me the city has only 2 such trucks. Where do you expect water to go if the catch basins are all blocked up ?? How stupid do you have to be to argue that an increase in population density has an impact on how much run off there is when it rains? 🤦🏾 A single family home with all its surface area paved over has exactly the same impervious surface as a parking lot of comparable lot size; both are 0. Why only blame the parking lot?
This is what happens when you abandon reason, logic and common sense for ideology. Every single problem we face, must, by definition be blamed on a ideologically driven set of culprits. In this instance, it’s climate change and gentrification.
Every solution has to involve increasing taxes and expanding government. More pigs feeding at the trough. I guess as long as the pigs have blue snouts , it does not matter.
For what it’s worth, the author should be commended for not finding a way to blame this on Trump. 😂🤣😂
sutisuc t1_iyougid wrote
Can you let us know which single family home is the equivalent size of one of the parking lots?
ahtasva t1_iyp8lot wrote
It involve simple math. If you have a parking lot that is 25,000 sqft that is completely paved over it has an impervious surface areas of 0. On the other hand you have 10 single family homes on 2500 sqft lots each that are completely paved over, each of those lots have an impervious surface area of 0; 10 x 0 = 0.
I live in the ironbound.and know for a fact that surface parking lots make up a small fraction of land use. The vast majority are housing unit, that, regardless of occupancy class have their back and side yards paved over, in violation of code.
The article is written in such away as to lead the uncritical reader to believe that the paved over parking lots are largely responsible for the runoff problem when in fact sqft for sqft, the average homeowner is contributing just as much to the problem as the parking lot owner.
Once you sell this lie to the uncritical reader, you then sell them a “solution” that will almost always end up costing them in taxes. When you think about it, it’s a perfect ponzi scheme.
If the city sent out inspectors tomorrow to issue citations to every homeowner who has illegally paved over his backyard, they could create impervious surfaces the equivalent of 10x the surface parking area. That of course will involve telling the truth and potentially loosing a few votes and that’s bad for business. So here we are with an ever growing govt. and more taxes.
sutisuc t1_iyp93en wrote
What’s the better use of land housing or parking lots?
ahtasva t1_iypb0w5 wrote
🤣🤣that has nothing to do with the issue at hand but good try🤣🤣
So your bright idea is to convert all the paved over parking lots to paved over single family houses and that will somehow fix the flooding problem?
sutisuc t1_iypc667 wrote
How does land use not factor into this discussion?
ahtasva t1_iypdy2r wrote
🤣🤣🤣🤣 you switched the discussion to land use now🤦🏾😂🤣
Did you even read the article ? The article blames flooding on surface parking , presumably because it is paved over and therefore does not absorb rain water. My point is, that is a false and dishonest argument. Houses that have their backyards paved over in violation of code are equally responsible.
What you are taking about; i haven’t a clue.
sutisuc t1_iypfwvm wrote
Yes and parking, housing, etc are all related to land use bub. That’s why the debate is should housing, parking, etc occupy a space.
ahtasva t1_iyqfs4n wrote
🤣🤣🤣 you keep saying the same thing over and over without explaining how. It’s almost as if you are a robot whose program as malfunctioned🤷🏾♂️.
They are all related…. 🤔, tell me how?
TrafficSNAFU t1_iysdelv wrote
I did some quick maths. Using satellite imagery on Google Maps I compared the 61-94 Main Street in Newark's Ironbound to the Edison Parking Lot at 160 Edison Place. Bare in mind this isn't a perfect methodology for multiple reason but the simplified maths are interesting. I picked that particular portion of that block on Main Street as it had 24 residential buildings with "Bayonne Boxes," these were 61-85 Main St and 70-94 Main St. I decided to roughly measure the square footage of their front yards, excluding what appeared to be the City sidewalk. I also excluded measuring the backyards as it was a little harder to determine what was and wasn't paved. I estimated the two rows of homes on each side of the street had roughly 6,880 sq ft of paved driveway/front yard area. In caparison, I estimated that the aforementioned Edison Parking Lot had around roughly 77,112 sq ft of paved parking area. If we assume that each of the residential buildings I measured on that block of Main Street can accommodate two families (households) per building, you have dwelling space for 48 households. Even if we assume one household per building, we still have 24 households. I agree that property owners, regardless of the size of the properties they own should seek any reasonable means to reduce stormwater runoff (reducing impervious surfaces with green space, using more previous types of paving, installing rain barrels, etc), we have to remember the old adage about being "penny wise and pound foolish." I don't think one has to stretch an inference to determine that residences probably provide more value to a community than a parking lot, and that's before we even considers the numbers I calculated.
ahtasva t1_iyt0h9z wrote
Your method is based on false logic. The only thing that matters is the ratio of expected impervious surface into actual impervious surface. That is the only apples to apples comparison.
I believe code requires the max buildable area for a standard lot not exceed 50%. I am almost certain that there isn’t a single lot in the ironbound that adheres to code. A combination of reasons are to blame:
- Loose granting of variance as a result of corruption and/or apathy
- Illegal extension
- Illegal paving over of unpaved surface area
The question is not what the best land use is; it’s whether or not parking lots are the cause of the flooding problem. On that count, they are no more responsible than the average residential lot that is paved over.
If we are Ok with allowing the owners of the average residential lot paving over their lots; why hold the owners of the parking lots to a different standard?
The article perpetuates a popular talking point amongst “activist”, that paved parking lots are either wholly or disproportionately responsible for access run off. There is absolutely no evidence to support this claim. It’s wise to remember that the parking lots are paved over with the permission of the city, which I presume approves these request on the basis that the residential lots have the impervious surface area required by code.
Bottom line, it does not matter if the parking lots are converted to housing, from a run off perspective; it’s more them likely that there will be no change in net impervious surface area.
A more pertinent question is why don’t we tell the truth? Tell property owners that their homes are flooding because they choose to pave over their yards, throw trash in the street and clog up the catch basins. That their unwillingness to co-operate with the street cleaning schedule has a direct causal effect to flooding.
Unfortunately, In the neo liberal zeitgeist, every issue has to be viewed through a lens of victim and culprit, hence the false narrative that paved over parking lots cause flooding. Poor home owner= victim; greedy parking lot owner = culprit.
How does this false narrative help homeowners ?? It does not! The proposed solution creates more Bureaucracy. Dozens of 100k / year paper pushers, who will raise taxes that the wealthy developers will bribe their way out of. It’s the rest of us who will have to foot the bill.
Start by enforcing existing laws and zoning standards. Restore impervious surfaces and clean up the streets and catch basins.create more open spaces. If all that fails, then we can start billing landowners for runoff.
TrafficSNAFU t1_iyt99t5 wrote
I don't disagree with your sentiment in the last paragraphs about enforcing existing codes and worrying about developers not being held accountable, but to ignore that some land use choices generate more stormwater run off and other externalities than others, seems short sighted to me. I also like to point out, that the residential structures, may have been built prior to the current building/zoning codes being made and hence may have been grandfathered in. I don't know the history of how building codes evolved in Newark so that is only educated guess on my part. Additionally, in 2018, Newark's Office of Sustainability had established some programs regarding stormwater runoff. One of them was a catch basin adoption program and another was a rain barrel giveaway, while the City hasn't seemed to follow up on these efforts, their decision to run these programs indicates to me that this issue isn't purely seen in the way you describe. Additionally, the NJDEP's Resilient NJ for Northeastern NJ, also looks at variety of strategy to mitigate flooding issues from the micro to the macro level. While there are plenty of big ticket items suggested in various scenarios, plenty was written on the importance of small scale action.
sutisuc t1_iynk2lo wrote
“Newark city officials have yet to respond about whether they will ultimately opt for a stormwater utility.”
Shocked, shocked, I say