Creeks, once overlooked, are now seen as assets for urban renewal

Dayton, Ohio

TROTWOOD is a hard-luck suburb of Dayton, Ohio. With a population of about 25,000, it was once the region's premier retail and entertainment destination. The city boasted one of the area's first enclosed malls, numerous shopping plazas, big-box retailers and a 5,500-seat arena.

But changing demographics and economic shifts led the city into a steep decline. Today, it's a retail wasteland of shuttered storefronts, and the arena has long been demolished.

But Trotwood has another asset to count on as it plots a comeback: Wolf Creek, a ribbon of water that meanders through the town to meet the Great Miami River in Dayton.

A former rail line along the creek has been converted into a bike path, and on warm spring days, cyclists pedal under the shade of sycamores. Still, Wolf Creek often goes unnoticed by those who live near it.

"Many residents cross it every day but don't realise it's there," said Chad Downing, executive director of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corp, which is leading the city's redevelopment.

Like many small cities and towns across the country, Trotwood had turned its back on its creek, dismissing it as irrelevant and an occasional nuisance. But developers have recently realised the value of even the most minor waterways for luring customers and commerce.

For decades, urban renewal in large cities has centered on riverfronts, and smaller towns are now recognising that creeks can provide the same opportunities.

But they can also pose flooding risks, aggravated as climate change causes increasingly extreme weather events, making long-term development a spin of the roulette wheel.

Rivers generally rise more slowly and keep areas submerged longer, but creeks, streams and small rivers create different challenges. Streams of water that most of the year aren't deep enough to reach an adult's ankles can suddenly morph into torrents that can sweep away cars, rip homes from their foundations and leave a trail of destruction.

Climate change weighs on Downing as he helps plot Trotwood's comeback. The city is trying to redevelop its downtown into a more dense, walkable environment that embraces the creek. One of the cornerstones will be a 20-acre parcel that borders Wolf Creek, which Downing envisions as a mixed-use development.

"But how do we make sure we are not creating a flood situation that has to be dealt with in the future?" he asked.

Steep banks hem in Wolf Creek, and the water hasn't breached them in recent memory, but that doesn't mean it someday couldn't. Downing is more aware that the decisions he makes now could resonate in his lifetime, he said, so Trotwood will embrace Wolf Creek in a creative yet cautious way.

Increased commercial development worsens the problem by creating impervious surfaces, which force more water into creeks, causing them to rise faster and farther.

Developers should steer clear of building anywhere in the 500-year flood plain of a creek, said Bill Becker, a climate change expert and former Department of Energy official who has worked with communities and developers to assess creek development risk.

There is an inherent tension, he said, because people are drawn to water, and developers are likely to follow. "And developers love the creek land because it is often low priced," said Becker, author of The Creeks Will Rise, which details how people and streams can coexist.

And as communities turn toward their creeks for redevelopment, those assets come with a price because of the increased risk of extreme weather.

Cities contemplating developing their creeks should move cautiously, said Kevin Wright, a principal and the director of operations and strategy at Yard & Co, an urban growth firm in Cincinnati.

"One-hundred-year floods are becoming 10-year events; the floods are happening more often," he said.

Yard & Co has helped many cities develop their creeks and small rivers in "flood-friendly" ways, including helping Trotwood draft a plan to get better use out of Wolf Creek.

One of the ways to embrace a creek is not to fight it, Wright said. Developers should accept that some lands are going to be submerged, but they can still have value. "We like the idea of building structures and facilities that can be submerged for a short period and not be destroyed," he said.

Wright mentions amphitheaters, bike paths, tennis courts and concrete benches as examples of structures that can withstand being underwater for a while but still add commercial value to an area. Developers should embrace those types of amenities.

Food trucks and other structures that can be towed to higher ground during a flood are also constructive ways to use the land around a creek, he said. Land use that can be quickly vacated creates commerce without creating fixed hazards.

Wright said cities like Trotwood could benefit commercially from their creeks even as they kept them at arm's length. Opening up a creekfront and making it accessible to an existing downtown infrastructure so people can walk along with it would enhance existing commercial developments like strip malls. NYTIMES