GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The city of Green Bay has applied for federal funding to purchase and demolish flood-prone homes next to the East River.
A public meeting is planned for tonight at 6:30 at Washington Middle School to gauge the interest of property owners.
Kevin Vonck, Green Bay’s Economic Development Director, tells FOX 11 the meeting will cover a variety of other subjects related to the city’s response and preparation for East River flooding, but purchasing homes is expected to be the main topic.
“This is probably going to be a multi-year process, if not a decades-long process, in order to go through and work on securing funding to do this. We really wanted to kind of start the conversation about how that area, eventually in the long-term, will likely be restored to natural conditions.”
In March, more than 100 homes in the city were damaged due to flooding, according to Vonck.
Vonck says the City of Green Bay has identified 37 properties to consider buying as it looks for short and long-term fixes to the issue.
“Eventually we may look at everything in the floodplain, but I really think we have to focus on these properties that are adjacent to city parks or other lands that we own right now.”
23 of the properties are on Hartung Street, 7 are on Cass St, 5 on Eliza St, and 1 each on Goodell and Mason Streets.
“The city is not going to come in tomorrow and buy all of the properties in the floodplain,” said Vonck. “We just don’t have the funds to do that at the moment and secondly we really have to look from a land development perspective of we just don’t also want to go in and pick off a lot of homes in the neighborhood and have just a few homes left in there.”
The city has applied for FEMA funding to pay for property acquisition, demolition, and incidental costs. The properties would be restored to green space.
Bill Galvin, the alder for much of the area affected by the flooding, tells FOX 11….
“There are some individuals who haven’t done so much in the way of repairing their property because either, A, they don’t have the finances to do it or, B, they’re like why should I do that if I’m potentially going to sell it and it’s just going to be razed and turned into parkland.”
One point of potential hesitation for the city is having these properties removed from the tax base. The properties could eventually be developed again, but this time meeting flood requirements.
