In Newark, a community grapples with ‘manmade, urban flooding’

Residents of Newark's Ivy Hill neighborhood say their homes routinely flood during major storms — a result, they say, of decades of nearby development that didn’t consider their neighborhood.

“We're not near bodies of water,” said homeowner Libre Jones, who added that her basement was inundated by 4 to 5 feet of water after the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit New Jersey last year. “It's literally manmade, urban flooding.”

Ida’s damage prompted Jones and about 20 of her neighbors to press local officials to find a solution as climate change threatens stronger storms. While city and county officials have promised to investigate the cause of the flooding, residents say the blame belongs to their next door neighbor: Seton Hall University.

They say their homes began to flood once the 58-acre campus — located across the Newark border, in the more affluent township of South Orange — began expanding in the 1990s. And now the university is seeking to expand again, with a pending application before the local planning board.