On Sunday, August 28, as Hurricane Irene pulled north out of New Jersey, Steve Goldin, CEO of InterCap Holdings, ventured out to inspect his property. He was not surprised to see no evidence of flooding despite the condition of Washington Road.
“None of our parking lots are flooded, and we do not own any buildings that were flooded. The flooding occurred in the other direction and all of our drainage basins on our property were only one-third filled,” he said in a telephone interview.
To illustrate the point Goldin took pictures of the conditions adjacent to the Rush Holt building at 50 Washington Road, at the border of InterCap’s property. The photographs show that flooding in the area only occurred further down the street and not in InterCap’s vicinity.
Goldin addressed concerns and speculation that the redevelopment plan, West Windsor’s transit village project, and future residents would create further flooding problems in years to come. Goldin asserted that the property will ultimately see the percentage of its grass-filled areas (permeable surfaces) triple from roughly 5 percent now to 15 with the transit village. This change will allow for less rainwater runoff onto impervious surfaces such as driveways, parking lots, and roads.
“If you look at the site plan, that concept plan — including the public green and other green spaces — show roughly 15 percent of the site as being permeable and conversely 85 percent being impermeable,” Goldin said.
West Windsor Business Administrator Robert Hary explained the basics in dealing with new developments and storm water management. He says once a building is constructed on top of an area, an impervious surface is created. Rain will fall onto roofs, into leaders and gutters, but then there is nowhere for it to go, causing flooding.
“Whenever you do any type of development to an area you’re taking away the pervious surface and creating an impervious surface. You then have to create an artificial way to deal with storm water. This is why developers have to have a storm water management plan which includes a retention basin,” he said, adding that stormwater management was never addressed up to 20 years ago.
Critics of the transit village project have also argued that an influx of new residents would create crowding around town and when major rainfall strikes hundreds of people would be stuck trying to make their way at the transit village or on area roads. Goldin objects, saying new residents would be proceeding right to the train station or, in the case of another substantial weather event, they would do the same thing that all West Windsor residents were mandated to do last weekend: stay home.
“As part of the redevelopment, not only will we have the ability to accommodate all of our goals and storm water requirements, but we’ll have excess capacity to allow them to tie in so we can help mitigate some existing problems off our site, which we have nothing to do with. We’ll be able not to eliminate them, but help mitigate some of the flooding issues,” he said.
