Would you rather have basements flood in a big rainstorm. I certainly don’t want that

Should be grandfathered in The new generation has no idea that what they r trying to ‘build’ is not sustainable. Streets weren’t made for this traffic, electrical grids weren’t made for this amount of people in such a small area. Etc But THEY THINK, BUILD BUILD BUILD is the answer

Downspouts are not the problem, it’s sewer lines never maintained and over development with no change to the infrastructure.

Where is the water supposed to go ? Ever wonder why homes have front lawns and back yards?

I understand the homes were built this way and approved with COA. Might this be an overdevelopment issue absent of parallel sustaining infrastructure water and sewer upgrades and ongoing maintenance cleanings to assure capacity is met?

If your house was built that way, it’s not illegal. I’ve never heard of this “law” from 2018 until now.

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This article has a lot of nonsense in it. The houses in MV when build had the down spouts in the rear of the house that collects the rain water from the flat section of roof go down and thru the house via the sewer line to the front street. That is how thousand of these houses were built in the 20s thru 50s. This was how they legally were build. We didn’t have major flooding problems until about 20 years ago or so when single family homes are being replaced by multi level apartments with more people in the neighborhood. If the law changed in 2018 it should not be retroactive. That is unfair and unreasonable to home owners who have houses long built before the law change. This will not solve the flooding issue in Middle Village with the alley ways. It will make it worse.

Councilman Wong should be fighting for us. This is ridiculous.

the issue is that the city sewer gets overwhelmed and then backs up into the homes.. now the homeowner has to deal with public sewage contamination... many homeowners have installed check valves to prevent this.. the issue is that you then have to redirect your rainwater too empty on the property which for many years was illegal... many homeowners have gotten fines for this... can't have it both ways...

This issue has been an issue for over 20 years. It is both climate and development related. Christina (maybe the Queens Crapper?) and the Civic helped tremendously by making light of this issue. They effectively ended the practice of paving over front yards and putting in illegal cutouts. Development is certainly an issue but there has been minimal upzoning in the Penelope basin. I've had to reroute my backyard downspout into a dry well because of the microbursts backflowing into my basement and there's only 20 2-stories between me and the cemetery. I recall that the Crapper had a thing against bioswales which was a marginal solution, but it was an legit attempt. Is there a real engineering solution out there?

Use your 2nd amendment right if someone comes in your property

People paving their driveways. Climate change.

Well Phil Wong what are you going to do for us????

So this was never an issue for the 70-100 years these houses have existed this way before recently? This flooding only started after they built the huge sewer treatment plant in Greenpoint. They admitted that they have to shut down the plant to avoid damage because it can’t handle rain storms. My family owned the same house built in 1912 in Maspeth from 1930 to 2011 and never once had a drop of water in the basement.

This is because people are speaking out about the IBX. Punishment for not going along with their proposal.

If the government would clean the sewers at LEAST every two years, there would be no problem. Years ago the sewers were cleaned regularly. I know some people with party driveways don’t even have sewers in the back. The downspouts were never illegal and now in the last three weeks they are.

What about homes that have garages slopped down with drain right in front of them? Water can't go up the driveway. I read somewhere that you're supposed to come up with some reservoir to collect that water. They expect us to dig via concrete and put a 50 gallon barrel that will get filled up in seconds in heavy rain?

Agree 100 percent. Completely irresponsible. Another money grab. Clean the dam sewers and you won't have a problem!

Quickest way to destroy a neighborhood, make it uncomfortable, push the people to sell out, buy up the property, build low income housing, you now have indentured wage slaves !