HIGH STREETS
BY TIMOTHY A. SCHULER
In Miami Beach, elevating streets is not without growing pains.
FROM THE AUGUST 2018 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.
Faced with rising sea levels, the City of Miami Beach is lifting itself out of the water?s way?one street at a time. Beginning with the neighborhoods lowest in elevation, the city has raised dozens of streets in the past few years, some by as much as two feet. The $500 million project, which also includes new stormwater pumps, is a coordinated effort to prevent flooding in the long term. In the short term, however, the rapid elevation of the public right-of-way is presenting the city with novel challenges.
Some of those challenges, such as pumps that can fail during power outages, are mechanical. Others are legal. When one restaurant flooded, its insurance company initially refused to cover damages after classifying the restaurant?s dining area as a ?basement? since it was now lower than the surrounding grade. (The city installed generators to solve the first problem and advocated on behalf of the restaurant owner, whose claim was eventually approved, to solve the second.) Other challenges involve the design of the public realm. How do the raised streets affect mobility, or the character of a neighborhood" In areas with newer development, the elevation of the street is imperceptible, says Eric Carpenter, the city?s public works director, since new structures are built to higher flood standards. But in places where the new ...
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