Wayne Dowell has been living in Rocky Ripple, an integrated city surrounded by the city of Indianapolis, since the age of six months.
Located between the White River and the Central Canal, Dowell and many of the other approximately 650 inhabitants live in a unique waterside oasis. But that lifestyle comes at a cost when the river overflows.
86-year-old Dowell has survived it. He also lived in Rocky Ripple when the first soil embankment was built along the river decades ago to protect the town.Or The work forced his parents and many others to move their homes a little further away from the river.
Now, new flood control projects have the potential to move Dowell further away from the river.
According to a new plan recently announced by the Indianapolis Office of Public Works, the family home Dowell grew up on Riverview Drive and still lives, but could be lost to protect Rocky Ripple from future floods. It is one of 14 houses.
What has attracted a lot of people to Rocky Ripple (White River) may be some of the things that have been pushed away.
“Where are you going?” Dowell said. “This is a peaceful place and one of the most peaceful places in the city. It’s okay for the city to stick to what they said first — we don’t want to take home.”
This new proposal comes four years after the town and its inhabitants have agreed with the city on a demolition ban plan to keep all homes upright. However, the city said it was having a hard time finding alternatives by lowering price tags due to rising construction costs. The city hall is also on a cutting board.
Still, city officials say it’s important to find a solution. According to a study by Purdue University, climate change is expected to make floods more common and serious.
“The ultimate goal is to provide Rocky Ripple with flood protection,” said Shannon Kirion, DPW’s stormwater manager. “So we were thinking about how we could do that and stay within the limits we have and the money we have.”
Residents admit that they want flood protection, but they don’t like it. New plans to do that, including the removal of the house, are calling on many people from Rocky Ripple to be armed and pushed back to locally elected city council officials.
“We all want flood protection.”
Just northwest of Butler University, the quaint water-enclosed town has about 300 homes and about 600 inhabitants. Some of Butler’s playgrounds are actually next to Rocky Ripple.
Rocky Ripple homes can be large or small, and many are very colorful — shades of purple, red, yellow, and blue. And people are just as eclectic: the “community of artists, musicians, hippies and hillbilly,” as explained by the inhabitants.
Many residents have large decks or are sifted through porch to spend as much time outdoors as indoors. Dowell knows where there are eagle nests across the river, the barking of sandhill cranes flying overhead for the past few days, or where turtles like to sunbathe on the shore.
The original embankment that protects the town was installed decades ago, and the river has never crossed it since. However, the embankment is aging and needs to be upgraded. And there is an increase in precipitation and heavy storms, a study from Purdue University shows.
According to a 2017 survey by Los Angeles-based engineering firm AECOM, there is a 92% chance that the embankment will be crossed at least once within the next 50 years. It floods the area and puts Rocky Ripple’s house underwater.
Another analysis of Flood Factor, a non-profit First Street Foundation tool for calculating flood risk, shows that almost every property in the community is exposed to serious or extreme flood risk. The tool predicts that Rocky Ripple’s homes are 99% likely to be flooded in the coming decades.
Daniel Axler, a longtime resident of Rocky Ripple, has seen the river go up and down. “And that’s scary,” he said. The river climbed 15 feet in 1990 and approached the town’s flood when it climbed 14 feet in 2005. In both cases, the river culminated just below the top of the embankment.
Construction within Rocky Ripple is currently restricted due to the risk of that flood. Upgrading protection allows you to build new homes or renovate existing homes. It can also help reduce flood insurance payments for homeowners.
There is a long history of efforts to protect the town from floods.
In 1996, the town said no to the US Army Corps of Engineers breakwater project, which would build dozens of homes along the river. Working on another Rocky Ripple proposal didn’t start until just a few years ago.
At that time, Rocky Ripple, Indianapolis, and Butler settled on a barrier consisting of space-allowed soil embankments and narrow physical walls. According to the 2018 AECOM report, it will cost $ 66 million and can save all Rocky Ripple homes.
“We had to lose visibility and access to the river because it was planned to be built for two years right behind our house,” said Axler, who needs to remove the house. .. “But we accepted it, and now we feel fooled.”
“We all want flood protection,” said Axler, who has lived in Rocky Ripple for 34 years. “But they promised they could do it without destroying the house.”
Costs are “infeasible” for the city
Since December, DPW said it has received updated quotes as part of the design process. Rising labor and material costs have brought the total project to about $ 95 million.
“It has become infeasible for us,” Kirion said.
So the department began to tell the inhabitants that they had returned to the square and everything had returned to the table.
In 2019, the Indianapolis City Council approved the creation of a flood control improvement district to fund the project. This is similar to a tax-increasing loan district where Rocky Ripple takes advantage of the expected increase in asset value to add property tax and repay the city.
Still, the initial cost of the project comes from the city’s stormwater fund. The city is trying to understand where and how costs can be reduced, which is called the “realistic range” between $ 70 million and $ 80 million.
“Without that, the stormwater program fund would be burdened,” said Killion, the city’s ability to build stormwater projects across the rest of the county.
The new plan will require replacing some physical walls with more soil embankments. These embankments, which are essentially large piles of soil, are much cheaper but occupy much more space. This means that some houses and the city hall are in the way.
City officials first met with city hall members and the most affected homeowners to inform them of the news. After that, DPW held a community-wide conference in February.
There is hope that some of the affected homeowners will be able to move their homes within their parcels, but that is not yet clear. For real estate owners who can’t do that, the city buys them from their homes.
According to Killion, we will hire two independent appraisers to evaluate the property. The average of these two ratings is then the offer that the city offers to each owner, in addition to some relocation costs and some others. Its first offer begins the negotiation period, so homeowners can sit down and work with the city to reach the numbers they feel comfortable with.
Neither Axler nor Dowell know where they will move. Dowell said he didn’t need a big one, but he wants to be out of town.
“I’m not very happy with them right now,” he said.
Mr Kirion said the city is aware of the impacts and concerns of its inhabitants. “But we also show that this is the best option we currently have to reach that goal and protect Rocky Ripple,” she said.
“Good time to strike”
While townspeople and their three elected board members are still considering options, many riverside owners want the board to support the original plan without demolition. is.
Axler installed a new roof in his home last year. Michael Reed said he and his wife had just finished a multi-year project of rewiring and renewing his home. Both said they wouldn’t have spent the money if they knew the city was trying to destroy the house.
“It’s bait-and-switch, they abandoned their offer,” Axler said. “If a car dealer or realtor does that, you will leave the deal.”
City council President Mandy Redmond said the entire town was surprised by the changes and “frustrated everywhere.”
Redmond, who has lived in Rocky Ripple for 38 years, voted as a resident in opposition to the Army Corps’ plans to remove dozens of homes. She said she was elected on a platform that works to gain community flood protection. Redmond owns a house along the river, but is unaffected by her changes.
“The ultimate goal is to protect as many homes as possible from catastrophic floods,” Redmond said. “We are surprised to drop people’s homes to get there, but we need to think carefully about things to get that protection.”
She said town leaders are still in favor of advancing the breakwater project. However, authorities are on standby until the town receives details from the DPW about revised plans, cost details, and unpursued alternatives, Redmond told Indyster.
Rocky Ripple’s representative city council member, John Barth, said he is also working to get more information, especially on the budget. He hopes to navigate these discussions and help us understand what the best protection looks like.
Mr Kirion said the city is ready to move forward, but is waiting to hear what the city wants to do. It will take about 2 years after the start of construction. She said that the town’s failure to defend against floods was an option. But it will end the involvement of the city and will not provide flood work.
That said, Kirion thinks it’s a good time to go on strike.
“Money is available to complete this project and there is a way forward, which we can’t say will be there in five or two years,” she said. “We currently have support, so we are providing a solution that provides this protection.”
Redmond said they had no way to move forward if the towns hadn’t agreed. The dialogue is underway and she said the town is looking forward to further discussions.
Call Sarah Bowman (317-444-6129), an IndyStar reporter, or send an email to sarah.bowman @ indystar.com.Follow her her twitter And Facebook: @IndyStarSarah. Connect with IndyStar’s Environmental Reporter: Join The Scrub on Facebook.
IndyStar’s environmental reporting project was made possible by the generous support of the non-profit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
