Bryant Neighbors Dig Into Drainage
Neighbors gather at the Bryant Community Center to hear Joan Nassauer, a University of Michigan professor, talk about water drainage issues. (Photo by the writer.)
On The Chronicle’s first trip to the Bryant Community Center in December 2008, elected officials, the heads of local nonprofits, city and county staff outnumbered residents at a meeting for the southeast Ann Arbor neighborhood. The reverse was true last Thursday evening, when a room full of neighbors filled every seat, gathering to discuss the challenges they share.
Bryant is one of the few clusters of affordable housing in Ann Arbor. It’s also been hit hard by the mortgage crisis – a foreclosed property in the neighborhood at 2 Faust Court, vacant and boarded up, has been targeted as one of the first acquisitions for the county’s new land bank.
The land bank actually dovetails with a widespread problem that affects nearly all residents, which was the focus of Thursday’s meeting: Inadequate drainage and the chronic pooling of water in crawl spaces, basements, yards and streets. Joan Nassauer, a University of Michigan professor of landscape architecture, has remediated sites with similar problems in Flint, Chicago, St. Paul and other areas. She was on hand Thursday to talk about what Bryant residents might do to address their drainage issues. [Full Story]
