Ivy Hill Residents Wrestle Environmental Racism and Seek Accountability

Ivy Hill residents attend a South Orange Planning Board meeting on Oct. 3 to address Seton Hall seeking final site plan approval for the construction of a Basketball Practice Facility and ongoing flooding issues in their neighborhood. (Josie Gonsalves for Public Square Amplified)

NEWARK, NJ—When Hurricane Ida pummeled New Jersey in Sept. 2021, bringing tornadoes and flash floods from south to north, the Ivy Hill neighborhood along Seton Hall University and Ivy Hill Park in Newark, a majority Black neighborhood, saw its streets turn into rivers. Floodwaters reached three to five feet high, sweeping away cars and spilling into homes. Residents incurred tens of thousands of dollars in damages. Although they say Seton Hall isn’t responsible for all of the water, the flooding problem has been made worse from decades of construction and has remained unresolved since 2001, when residents first brought the issue to the attention of the university after Hurricane Allison.

Kenneth Walters and Daniel Gibson, residents of the small Ivy Hill neighborhood for over 30 years, said they experienced their first significant flood during Hurricane Allison. At that time, the Newark Engineer’s Office, the Director of Water and Sewer and a business administrator from Seton Hall agreed to look into the problem, and discovered that the runoff from Seton Hall, in neighboring South Orange, drains into Newark’s sewer system and likely overwhelms it during storms.

The engineer was supposed to find out whether there was an agreement between Newark and South Orange to allow that connection, but Walters never got an answer and neither the university, the county, the city or the state took any action to address it. Inaction has left the community vulnerable to disaster and damage for the last 20 years. 

Although there was a failure across the board to address the issue, Walters said the stormwater runoff worsened when Seton Hall began a series of development and renovation projects. The university had several between 1970 and 1990, and after 2010. There was a time, he said, when flat green space—shrubs, grass and trees—that served as a border between their community and Seton Hall’s campus, helped absorb stormwater. But then the university elevated their property and paved it over, enabling the flow of water downhill and into the bordering neighborhood. Seton Hall has refused to acknowledge the negative impact on the Newark residents and their property. 

Now residents are calling the flooding issue an environmental justice issue, a movement that responds to environmental racism. The state recognizes Newark as overburdened, a city where marginalized communities experience a disproportionate impact of environmental and public health hazards.

The Ivy Hill neighborhood is prone to flooding partly because it sits at the bottom of Seton Hall, Ivy Hill Park and Tuxedo Parkway, much like a bowl, so stormwater pools in their neighborhood if Newark’s sewer system is overwhelmed or not maintained. That has happened increasingly more often over the years.

Residents say Seton Hall has paid little attention to how land disturbance from their construction projects has contributed to the stormwater runoff in their neighborhood—a Black neighborhood at the bottom of the hill. 

“We are the afterthought,” said Libre Jones, referring to the flooding resulting from Seton Hall’s past construction. “We are tired and we want to be considered and our property protected.”

Reynolds Place in the Ivy Hill neighborhood in Newark suffered serious flooding during Hurricane Ida in Sept. 2021. (Photo courtesy of Libre Jones)

Seton Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.

Hurricanes Floyd in 1999, Allison in 2001 and Irene in 2011 ripped through New Jersey and the Newark area, causing wind damage, tornadoes and severe flooding. Then came Ida last year. Patrice Bowers was home with her family on Woodbine Avenue when Ida hit. She heard her 79-year-old mother yell from the top of the basement steps. When Bowers ran over, she saw the family room in the basement filling with water—the same place where her mother had been watching TV just minutes earlier. She had only left to get a drink.

The following day, with the aid of a sump pump, Bowers, her sons, her nephew and her sister formed an assembly line and bailed the water out with whatever they could find. It took hours.

“I had it completely demoed,” she said. Having to replace everything that was damaged—furniture, appliances, washer, dryer, boiler, furnace, TVs—“It probably cost me $25,000,” she said. “Again.”

LaVita Johnson, who lives three blocks from Bowers, said that during Ida, the water came up through the floor and walls of her basement. She hired a contractor to pull down the walls, only to find mold—and FEMA failed to cover the expenses.

A map showing the Ivy Hill neighborhood, from Reynolds Place to Midland Place, affected by the flood in relation to Seton Hall and Ivy Hill Park.

Bowers said watching her home flood again, knowing there was nothing she could do to prevent it, took an emotional toll, which has been compounded by the financial and physical hardships of the disaster and recovery. “You want to make sure everybody is safe, the fear of ‘what if someone was in the basement, maybe sleeping at the time the flood came in, and no one else was home,’” she said.

Jones agrees. "Like we literally have PTSD … when it rains really bad for really long, we are texting and calling each other: ‘Do you see anything going in my basement?’ ‘Just check my windows.’ ‘Can you look at my backyard?’" Jones said. "Like we panic."

Despite the threat of another flood, their neighborhood—like the rest of the East Ward—isn't recognized as a flood zone. So most received no relief from FEMA after Hurricane Ida. Some were forced to dip into their retirement funds for storm repairs, and older residents on a fixed income have struggled with decades' worth of storage, basement renovations, washing machines, water heaters and boilers destroyed. 

The few who have flood insurance were covered for structural damage but not for their lost belongings. If another storm strikes, they fear their insurance companies will drop them—and without protections in place, anything can happen. "We cannot sit here and take this, keep taking this financial brunt," said Jones.

Searching for Answers and Accountability

After Bowers repurchased what she lost in Ida and felt somewhat settled again, and with the threat of the next hurricane season on the horizon and plans on the table for more construction at Seton Hall, she and her neighbors decided to once again confront the flooding problem with university and government officials.

During a few meetings in September, the residents aired their frustrations and concerns to representatives of Seton Hall. In response to the university’s plan to add a 12,862 square-foot Basketball Practice Facility and a 176 square-foot vestibule to the Richie Regan Recreation and Athletic Center, the residents requested that resources—or at least an independent consultant—to complete an environmental flooding study or Hydrologic and Hydraulic (H&H) analysis to evaluate and assess the flooding in the area, before they break ground again. They also wanted a written report that provides a plan to mitigate the flooding issue, especially since the university also has flooding on its campus. Two of Seton Hall's buildings flooded during Ida, including the lower levels of the Recreation Center bordering the Ivy Hill neighborhood. Walters said that while the university may be unwilling to acknowledge that they are contributing to the excess water, the fact that their new Recreation Center flooded during Ida should be enough proof that there is a problem.  

Yet the response to the residents’ request for an independent study was met with a firm “no,” from Seton Hall’s attorney, according to LaToya Battle-Brown, who attended one of the September meetings. “He said absolutely not,” she said. “He said they had the experts, and they were not going to do another study.”

Going Beyond Inadequate Policies

"This is what we're doing now," said Bowers. "Trying to hold Seton Hall accountable, South Orange Township accountable, Newark accountable. To do what needs to be done to protect our homes because we're not in a quote-unquote flood zone."

The residents scored a minor victory on Oct. 3 when the South Orange Planning Board postponed approval of Seton Hall’s site plan for the basketball facility. That gives the community some breathing room before the next chapter in the flooding dilemma and Seton Hall time to finally address their concerns.

“I'm really excited to see that this didn’t finish tonight,” said Battle-Brown. “But I absolutely stand by the fact that they need to do a comprehensive study, environmental study, to mitigate flooding.”

Part of Seton Hall’s Master Plan depicting the addition of the proposed Basketball Practice Facility to Seton Hall’s Recreation Center in relation to Reynolds Place and Woodbine Avenue in Newark, and the City of Newark and South Orange boundary line.

Since the proposed basketball facility will disturb over one acre of land, it’s considered a “major development” and local and state regulations require developments to address stormwater quantity and quality and groundwater recharge by incorporating green infrastructure.

According to South Orange’s ordinance on stormwater management, a major development must demonstrate that there is no increase in peak stormwater runoff rates for two, ten and 100-year storm events when compared to pre-construction rates, “and that the increased volume or change in timing of stormwater runoff will not increase flood damage at or downstream of the site.” 

To meet the green infrastructure requirement and the rate of stormwater runoff, the university plans to install 7,325 square feet of pervious pavement to capture stormwater runoff and slowly release it into a receiving sewer system. The university’s stormwater report states that this will reduce the peak discharge rate of stormwater by 50 percent for a two-year storm, 25 percent for a 10-year storm, and 20 percent for a 100-year storm. However, in response to concerns from the community, Seton Hall decided to increase water capture and storage by 20 percent, which will further reduce the peak discharge rate, relieving what they believe is some of the pressure on the existing conveyance system.

“We've met with our neighbors in the Newark Ivy Hill neighborhood,” said Derek Orth, an associate attorney for Seton Hall at the Oct. 3 planning board meeting. “And in conversations with them we've agreed to modify and improve the project in an effort to be responsive to their concerns regarding stormwater and related issues, as it concerns this application [for the basketball facility].”

But it’s not enough, residents say. They want solutions to the existing infrastructure contributing to their flooding issue, which would start with the environmental flooding study they requested—or H&H analysis. While the state requires new development and redevelopment projects to mitigate stormwater runoff, it doesn’t require the same for existing development—a significant contributor to flooding in New Jersey since most construction before 2004 includes very little stormwater management. 

Although towns aren't required to fix existing developments, engineers and community organizers are trying to write grants and work with cities to retrofit existing developments with green infrastructure to manage stormwater. Residents fear that if the basketball facility is approved and their risk for flooding remains unstudied and unresolved, what happened to the Ron Jolyn Apartments in West Orange may happen to them. 

In that case, tenants noticed that stormwater runoff worsened after Seton Hall Prep, unaffiliated with Seton Hall University, expanded their Kelly Athletic Complex. Heavy rains would rush down the steep slope behind the building into their neighborhood, so when Hurricane Ida hit, it triggered a rockslide.

Seton Hall’s engineer, John DiGiacinto, said that an H&H analysis would go above and beyond Seton Hall's responsibility since it would need to involve Newark, South Orange and the County, but Battle-Brown disagreed, saying it’s the morally responsible thing to do and that the university should have the responsibility to do the study if they want to build on their campus. 

Newark Councilman Dupré Kelly, who represents the West Ward, told the South Orange planning board and Seton Hall attorney Orth that Newark would be more than happy to help the university make that regional connection and ensure residents are safe. “We can assist from the city side with the Water and Sewer Department and get in touch with the county,” said Kelly. “I believe the residents are worth that even though they’re not from South Orange.”

Orth said all concerns raised at the planning board meeting on Oct. 3 will be addressed when they return before the board again for final site plan approval for the basketball facility and added that there’s a conversation that needs to happen between Seton Hall, Essex County and the City of Newark. “And it's one that we're willing and happy to participate in and to host,” he said.

No matter what, residents want a genuine look at what’s happening on the Seton Hall campus and how it affects them, “topically, your infrastructure, all of it, a full-on analysis,” said Jones, since another point of concern is whether Seton Hall is taking water from one side of the campus and redirecting it through the sewer systems on their property to feed back into Newark. 

Walters said the university is draining water from their parking lot into the back of the baseball field in Ivy Hill Park, which is located in Newark but owned by Essex County. That water drainage system connects across South Orange, onto Seton Hall's campus, through a brook that runs down the property line between Newark and Seton Hall and connects into Newark’s sewer system.

Walters said that when the brook is overwhelmed, water leeches through the brick tunnel surrounding it into people’s backyards bordering the campus on Reynolds Place. The ground is always damp, and water pumps run constantly.

"There's so much water that's going from South Orange, from Seton Hall, into that brook that when the natural flow of water comes out at the park down the street, it has no place to go," explained Walters. "It can't go into the sewers because the sewers are full of water. So, it sits on top of the street."

While residents wait for Seton Hall, Newark, South Orange and Essex County to come together and take action, they’re left to worry about the next storm. “You can't relax,” Jones said. “Nobody wants to be in this situation. We bought our first home, our son is a teenager, this is for him to have also. But I'm like, ‘Yeah, I want to sit on my front porch and chill out. I don't want rats running across my front yard. I want to sit outside with my dogs. I don't want to have to worry about my literal actual property costing me more than it already does.’ And it's not my fault.”