Permeable driveway looks good while it helps prevent flooding

P. Adam Kelly loves the house he bought on Aline Street in the Faubourg Delachaise neighborhood, but he never loved the “big and ugly, cracked and broken” concrete driveway that came with it. Removing the unsightly slab was on his to-do list, but the thought of actually committing to the project seemed daunting and expensive.

“I’ve wanted to get rid of it from the day I bought the house in 2012,” said Kelly. “But it’s one of those projects you never get around to doing for so many reasons.”

Then Kelly found out about the Front Yard Initiative sponsored by The Urban Conservancy. It uses financial incentives to encourage homeowners to rip up concrete driveways and replace them with greener solutions that retain water and help the city better manage its relationship with water. For Kelly, it was a perfect match.

“It gave me that extra spark I needed to get this project moving,” said Kelly, an associate professor at the Tulane School of Medicine.

Adam KellyÕs permeable driveway is seen in New Orleans on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE Rebate incentive

That spark came in the form of a $950 rebate for removing about 350 square feet of concrete slab, clearing the way to get the job started. Kelly went on to replace 30 feet of concrete driveway with a water-retention system that can hold more than 600 gallons of water, keeping it from running into the street and flooding right into the city drainage system.

Kelly hired a contractor to rip up and remove the a 30-foot-long concrete driveway, which ran down the side of his property, but he did the rest of the project himself.

It included a lot of digging with a shovel.

He dug a 48-inch-deep French drain where his driveway meets the sidewalk, then dug two runners down the length of the driveway that were each 10 inches deep.

He filled the French drain and the runners with gravel, and then paved them with a layer of sand and bricks to create a driveway surface. A strip of Mondo grass landscapes the ground between the runners.

“I didn’t realize how much work it would be, and I definitely recommend hiring a contractor with an excavator that can dig,” he said with a laugh. “I would never do it my way again.”

With complications from the pandemic, it took him a little over a year to complete the project.

Adam KellyÕs permeable driveway is seen in New Orleans on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE Doing good in the city

It was still expensive. The rebate only put a dent in his out-of-pocket expenses, which were about $4,300. But the look of that ugly driveway improved, and it’s doing some good in fighting flooding in a city that’s below sea level.

The executive director of The Urban Conservancy, Dana Eness, said the program is designed to motivate people to remove unwanted paving and install “water-smart” landscaping that slows down the flow of rainwater into city catch basins. Homeowners can get $2.50 per square foot to remove impermeable surfaces.

Eness said that as with Kelly, most projects involve removing concrete, creating a water-retention feature and paving with bricks or other permeable materials.

“We encourage people to stop overpaving, and we help people remove existing paving to reduce the amount of water flowing directly into the streets,” Eness said.

The program has funded about 150 similar projects in every district across the city, resulting in the removal of 85,000 square feet of concrete slab and creating about 160,000 gallons of water storage per rain event.

Adam KellyÕs permeable driveway is seen in New Orleans on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE

Founded in 2001, the Urban Conservancy works to build more environmental resiliency into the community. The Front Yard Initiative was started in 2015 to make the city’s relationship with water more sustainable.

Create a plan, get a check

“The owner creates a plan and we approve it, and once the work is complete, the homeowner receives a check for a portion of the project,” Eness said. “The long-term vision is for this to serve as a model for a citywide program with a renewable financial resource. Many cities across the country have heavily subsidized incentives for residents to build green drainage systems, and we would love to see New Orleans embrace this.”

Eness said they are pleased when a homeowner handles a project, but they also work with local contractors.

Nicole Nixon, who with her husband, Greg, owns a New Orleans-based green infrastructure company called Ubuntu Construction, has worked with the Urban Conservancy on numerous Front Yard Initiative projects. The company, certified under the National Green Infrastructure Certification Program, specializes in solving drainage problems with alternative solutions

ranging from permeable pavers to underground bioretention facilities.

Nixon acknowledges that green infrastructure isn’t cheap but notes that the Front Yard Initiative is one of the few opportunities for rebates.

For more information visit urbanconservancy.org/project/fyi/.