Flood fund leaves Downtown homowners high and dry

By Ann Hui –

Residents of Downtown neighbourhoods are disappointed that little of a promised $195 million basement flooding prevention plan will be going to them.

Lou Di Gironimo, Toronto Water’s general manager, says that the city “simply can’t afford” to fund fixes city-wide. Instead, Di Gironimo is proposing to fix the flooding problem one area at a time, with the $195 million devoted to flood-prevention measures in areas other than Downtown. Instead, much of the money will go to North York and Scarborough, where it will be spent on upgrading sanitary sewers and storm drainage systems, building sewage storage tanks and providing basement flooding protection subsidies to homeowners.

The city was hit with a number of rainstorms this summer, causing basements across the core to flood. According to Paula Fletcher, over 120 people in her area were affected by a July 8 flood alone. She warns that “with extreme weather and climate change, we’re expecting a lot more.”

Even if the city could afford to fix everything at once, Di Gironimo said, because of extreme weather conditions, $195 million wouldn’t have prevented certain homes from flooding. “Because of the severity of the storms, there probably would have still been flooding,” he said.

Bob Ferguson, a resident of Leslieville, was out for dinner on the night of the storm. “When I came home, the water was in my basement,” he said. Luckily, Ferguson, a project officer who is familiar with engineering, had thought to install a back flow preventer in his home and avoided severe damage.

Ferguson wants city council to consider his neighbourhood a priority area and says that he sees previous attempts to address similar issues as “bandage approaches.”

Fletcher says that although Leslieville is in the list for an environmental assessment for flood prevention, she’s “not expecting one to happen very soon.”

She suggests that banning front-yard paving would also help to prevent flooding, an idea Di Gironimo supports. “I say no more front yard parking,” said Fletcher. “I’ve been whacked on it so many times in city council,” she laughs, “but I’ll probably try it again.”