For Some Norfolk VA Residents, Rising Seas Plant Tidepools On Lawns; New Biz - Piering Whole Houses
Amanda Armstrong schedules her life around the tides. For the past year and a half, she’s had to navigate rising waters that saturate the lawn of her red brick house in Norfolk, Virginia, and sometimes fill a puddle out front with crabs and fish.
“We call it our little aquarium,” Armstrong, 40, said from outside the home along the Lafayette River that she rents with her family, where wetlands plants have sprouted up from the frequent doses of salt water.
Climate change is beginning to take a toll on real estate in the coastal city, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Richmond, as insurance costs soar and residents resort to putting their homes on stilts or opening up space underneath for the water to flow through. While most of the U.S. is in a housing rebound, prices in Norfolk fell 2.2 percent in October, according to the Virginia Beach-based Real Estate Information Network.
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Along the Virginia coast, flooding has become such a part of everyday life that residents are responding by raising their properties about 10 feet (3 meters) off the ground, towering over neighbors in treehouses atop gray cinder block beds. It costs from $80 to $100 a square foot, and takes about two to four months to lift a home and complete the construction underneath, according to Jim Matyiko, who co-runs the Southeast division of Expert House Movers. The structural moving company elevates one or two homes each week in the Virginia coastal area, Matyiko said. About 80 percent are lifted with aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-18/front-yards-turn-to-wetlands-as-climate-change-takes-toll