How Norfolk Residents Fought Discriminatory Flood Policies

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(TNS) – Water is entwined in Norfolk’s DNA.

The mermaid city is fringed by 144 miles of shoreline along its lakes, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, including the popular stretch of beach at Ocean View. Much of that land is situated in residential neighborhoods, and a large chunk of Norfolk’s economy and livelihood is centered on its waters.

But this staple of Norfolk life could become its greatest threat as climate change creates problems for many coastal locales. So the city proposed ways to protect its residents and properties long-term.

Now, the city is poised for big changes.

At an April 25 meeting, the City Council approved the Coastal Storm Risk Management Project, a large-scale series of flood mitigation projects in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the next 10 years — at a cost of more than $2 billion.

The massive undertaking includes 8 miles of new or extended flood walls built around downtown neighborhoods over the next decade, as well as surge barriers and pump stations in other areas. The plan would be conducted over five phases, and all include new structures — except one.

The final phase, covering the neighborhoods south of the Elizabeth River, will not include new structures and instead focus on improvements to specific properties.

This sparked worries among southside residents that discriminatory practices and decisions made almost 100 years ago were looming within the city’s plans for the next century of flood protection.

But they fought back. And won.

Now, leaders across the board are working toward a solution that would address decades of disenfranchisement on the southside.

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The project and its issues

“Most of the people over here have lived over here, 50 years plus, 80 years plus, and we even have members that lived here for 100 years,” said Lawrence Brown, president of the Campostella Heights Civic League.

His neighborhood is one of Hampton Roads’ oldest communities, he said, and not having the storm surge protections was “unacceptable.” Flooding is not new to the southside — it faces nuisance flooding frequently — but having storm surge protections against severe weather is imperative.

“Most people that live over here, they are retired, they got their home and they paid it off,” Brown said. “And now somebody comes in and tells them that they may have to come in and fill the basement. Basically, we didn’t want a situation that had gone on like what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Those wards flooded, and some of those people are still out of homes today. So that’s basically how it started.”

In March, residents of southside neighborhoods gathered in front of the City Council to express those concerns. The resolution to approve the project already was delayed, but citizens said city leadership should focus on shortcomings in the current plan.

The project is split into five phases. The first, which covers most of the city’s downtown, is divided into several sub-phases. Phase 1A began the design phase in 2022, and will focus on a section from the Berkley Bridge to Campostella Road. Phase 1B will include Town Point Park and the Waterside District while Phase 1C will build structures from Ghent to Town Point Park.

The final portion of the first phase is the downtown floodwall, which is estimated to be complete around 2031. By the end of the sub-phases, a system of floodwalls with a levee, surge barriers and natural features will extend from Ghent through downtown connecting to the Ohio Creek Watershed project.

In the Ohio Creek Watershed project, eroding shoreline along the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River has been replaced by a 2,000-foot-long earthen berm, about 8 feet in height. Asphalt has been torn out from the three blocks closest to the river and replaced with red brick permeable pavers that allow water to soak into the ground. The $112 million project includes other features to reduce flooding, such as pump stations and hidden drains, and focuses more on nuisance flooding rather than storm surge.

“It is the storm surge flooding and hurricanes flooding that requires these types of structural solutions, but I think what we really need to be doing is kind of looking at hybrid solutions where we look at solutions that can actually maybe cut down some of the energy of a storm surge and then combining that with a structural solution,” said Carol Considine, an associate professor of engineering technology and program head at the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience at Old Dominion University.

For the second portion, a system of floodwalls and barriers will be built to reduce storm surge from entering Pretty Lake at Shore Drive. The design phase is set to begin in 2024, and construction will continue through the first half of 2028. For Phase three, barriers will be constructed from Norfolk International Terminal to the Lamberts Point area to reduce storm-surge risk to the Lafayette River watershed. Phase four is another system of floodwalls, storm surge barriers and tide gates to reduce storm surge from entering Broad Creek at Interstate 264.

The final phase is the only portion without plans to build new structures. Instead, this portion is property-specific, meaning certain homes and structures will be the focus. That work includes elevating some homes, filling basements, flood-proofing and buyouts. Work would take place in several areas of the city, including Berkley, Campostella, Campostella Heights, Elizabeth Park, Ingleside, Norfolk International Terminal and Willoughby.

In 2018, the evaluation criteria for structural measures was based on a benefit-to-cost ratio. This means the analysis focused primarily on the monetary value of damages to properties but did not allow for consideration of social effects, including life, health and safety.

Sharon Hendrick, president of Campostella Civic League, said residents were unaware they were being left out of structured improvements until the study was completed.

“The idea was presented and when we found out about it, that’s when we voiced our opinion, and started to advocate for our communities,” she said. “Because you can’t put a value on property that has been passed down through generations and people have had for a lifetime.

“To have us displaced or, or even forgotten about, it was unacceptable. So that’s when we started going down to City Hall and voicing our opinions.”

After those initial meetings, Hendrick, Brown and other southside leaders began reaching out to citywide leadership. The scheduled vote initially was delayed to address the equity issues and to find a path forward. By the end of April, southside leaders, the city and the Army Corps formed a partnership to make improvements to phase five.

But according to researchers who study housing and environmental impacts, using cost analyses to choose which areas receive structures and which don’t is a flawed process.

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History of redlining in Norfolk’s southside

Redlining, the mid-20th-century practice by banks and insurers to concentrate Black and other minority homeowners within certain neighborhoods, was banned under the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But its legacy has persisted through entrenched segregation, economic inequality, lack of public services, and negative environmental impacts.

During redlining, Black neighborhoods were cut off from loans and other forms of investment, as well as racial covenants, where restrictions were placed on who could — and could not — buy homes.

Federal redlining would deepen the divide created by city leaders in the 1930s and ‘40s. The maps that showed banks and mortgage lenders the relative risk of investment graded white neighborhoods low risk and Black neighborhoods red: a dangerous investment. That gave Black people far fewer choices for where to live, said Johnny Finn, associate professor of geography and Chair of the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology at Christopher Newport University. Over time, Finn said, redlining and other discriminatory housing policies have negatively affected property values in Black and other minority neighborhoods.

“Even when you control for household income, for every percentage point increase a neighborhood is African American, home values dropped by $700,” Finn said. “These are neighborhoods where the average annual income is the same. So taken out to the extreme, a neighborhood that is 100% white versus a neighborhood that’s 100% Black, that’s a $70,000 difference in home value, even where household incomes are the same.”

The trend of environmental impacts on Black and other minority neighborhoods exists not just in Norfolk. According to a 2020 study, researchers analyzed more than 100 U.S. cities — and formerly redlined neighborhoods in nearly every city studied had hotter temperatures than the non-redlined neighborhoods, some by nearly 13 degrees.

“Redlined neighborhoods, on average, in Hampton Roads are 5.5 degrees hotter than neighborhoods, in some cases, just a couple of blocks away that escaped redlining,” Finn said. “So these neighborhoods have fewer trees, they have more pavement, they’re significantly hotter.

“I know that floodwalls don’t deal with heat, but in the context of climate change, it’s an increasing (of) baseline temperatures. Extreme heat events are more intense and lasting for longer for the populations that live in these formerly redlined neighborhoods.”

Finn said overlooking or ignoring historic racial disparities in projects can continue negative impacts on low-income and minority communities.

“Another way to think about it is unless they’re actively taking into account the effect of historic discriminatory practices, that’s automatically going to be there,” he said. “Because that effect is widespread, and it permeates every single aspect of housing, such as (property) values, in every single neighborhood nationwide.”

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Flooding disparities

In the past, other cities have shared similar concerns about disparities in flood planning.

Post-Katrina, residents in some areas in and near New Orleans expressed concerns with early repairs to the levee system. According to The Times-Picayune in 2008, residents were concerned about the area of three canals in western New Orleans that dramatically reduced the risk of flooding in predominantly white neighborhoods, while the risk of flooding in largely African American neighborhoods remained nearly the same as before Katrina.

In 2021, the NAACP released a 40-page report on advancing racial justice in federal flood infrastructure projects. The report conducted case studies in three cities: St. Louis, Indianapolis and New Orleans.

“The federal processes and decision-making criteria used to approve new flood infrastructure are difficult to navigate and are structured in ways that do not always represent the needs of low-wealth communities of color,” a portion of the report read.

The report said the lack of action against disparities has created a vicious cycle for Black and other minority neighborhoods at risk of flooding, as climate change causes more severe inundation. When recovery favors wealthy (and usually white) neighborhoods, it leads to insufficient maintenance of existing systems in low-income neighborhoods. That, in turn, impacts housing and economic inequality.

“Our research confirms that Black Americans are systemically flood exposed and experience disproportionate flood impacts,” the report read. “We also note that it is difficult for communities to identify their level of flood exposure, due to omissions in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s floodplains. Official floodplain maps, used when making important decisions about zoning and property development, are outdated and omit critical information, in particular about potential climate impacts.”

Since the report, the federal government has taken steps to help address the disparities. One is the Justice40 Initiative, an executive order signed by President Joe Biden. The initiative aims to have 40% of the “overall benefits” of certain federal investments “flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved and overburdened by pollution,” according to an announcement of the initiative.

The initiative uses the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), a map that identifies disadvantaged communities marginalized and overburdened by pollution and underinvestment. It will be updated annually each fall. According to the CEJST, all Norfolk neighborhoods south of the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River were flagged as disadvantaged communities. The census tract including Berkley is in the 91st percentile for projected risk to properties from tides, rain, riverine and storm surges within 30 years.

“It comes down to the Army Corps of Engineers — and this is not bashing them — for years has had congressional oversight to move these types of projects forward without involving the community,” Brown said. “And unfortunately, in the neighborhoods that we live in, it was always our value of our houses being used in their cost analysis. That’s how we were left out. Let’s make it clear this is not only Norfolk. This is across the country, but it’s beginning to change.”

All of the tracts on the southside, as well as tracts surrounding Harbor Park and Norfolk State University, have “historically high barriers to accessing home loans.”

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Going forward

Receiving federal dollars for large-scale mitigation projects can be highly competitive, said Jessica Whitehead, executive director of the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience at Old Dominion University.

Whitehead, who also served as chief resiliency officer at the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, said the process to get access to federal funding also is rigid. Once the plan is in place, it can be very difficult to make changes.

In April, Norfolk City Council passed a resolution to address the issues and commit leadership to reassessing the design and construction of protections for the area. While changes are not guaranteed, and will likely take years, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to ask the federal government to modify the way it calculates whether structural flood protection measures could be used in the southside community.

This, for southside city leaders, is a win — not just for Norfolk, but for underrepresented communities across the country. Brown said citizens and leaders from around the country have reached out to speak with local leaders about how they rallied together for changes.

“We’re going to do our best to not continue the inequities of our investments in the past,” said Michael Connor, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said at the signing of the project’s formal agreement.

Connor said all parties were committed to fixing the disparities from using the cost-benefit analysis.

“As we design our projects, we seek to maximize the benefits by protecting the most high-value properties in any particular community. We’re not going to throw that out,” Connor said. “But we’ve got to leave room for ourselves to consider social, environmental and equitable benefits that need to be part of these features. And we’re in the middle of that right now.

“There’s a lot of those features in this project. We’ve got the southside community that we’re still working with to see how we can be sure that those protections extend to that community, too. Pres. Biden has pushed us in this area, and I’m very proud (that) the Army for Civil Works and the Army Corps of Engineers have embraced it.”

According to a notice from Resilient Norfolk, another name for the Coastal Storm Risk Management Project, impacts on historically Black neighborhoods in Norfolk were “under assessed.”

“Based on inputs from the southside community members, the city and the USACE recognize the criteria from the initial study was not comprehensive in all the factors impacting this community,” the notice reads. “It is important to take into consideration all social effects of a community, and when done so, there is no better case to be made for structural flood risk reduction features than the southside community.”

As for planning an alternative measure for the fifth phase, that will begin with a post authorization change report, also known as a PACR. Col. Brian P. Hallberg, commander of the Norfolk District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will put forth the justification and funding request to the Corps of Engineers Headquarters. If approved, the PACR would advance to the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works and the office of management and budget. If the PACR were to require Congressional approval, it would go into the next Water Resources Development Act. That act is slated for 2024.

The timeline for the updates is expected to take three to five years.

“Prior to any construction, the public will be given the opportunity to provide input and feedback regarding the project,” Hallberg said. “We value the community’s involvement in planning, the design and implementation of this critical flood risk management project within the Southside community for their input thus far. We continue to work with the city to address their concerns for structural measures.”

For now, though, Brown and Hendrick said they look forward to continuing to work for protections for the southside.

“That lack of flood protection would have affected some of the country’s largest shipbuilding companies and repair companies,” Brown said. “So we all as the community, as a business community, had to come together and say, ‘Hey, we need the same protection.’ But not just only for us — let’s make sure this whole project is protecting the people that need to be protected.”

Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com