Needham Awarded State Grant to Tackle Flooding, Stormwater Maintenance

May 27, 2025
By Sylvie Simmons
• Nearly two years after a major flooding incident hit Needham, the town is taking steps toward strengthening its flood mitigation and addressing a changing climate.

With a recently issued $45,000 state grant, Needham will consider addressing flooding concerns by reducing the town’s impervious cover, specifically in parking lots.

Last month, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) awarded $2 million to more than 50 other municipalities, including Needham, which can use the funds to modify their zoning, retain consultants and make other “environmentally sensitive” policy changes, said Kurt Gaertner, the office’s assistant secretary for environmental policy.

“Broadly speaking, the intent is to help cities and towns improve their land use practices,” Gaertner said of the grant program. “It is cities and towns like Needham that, through their zoning, through their subdivision regulations, through their parking standards, have a lot of authority, the primary authority, over where and how growth takes place.”

Impervious cover includes all surfaces that are unable to absorb water, such as roads, roofs, driveways and sidewalks. Needham will use the grant funding to research how it may reduce impervious parking by potentially minimizing parking ratios and finding ways to increase permeable pavement.

Reducing impervious cover would allow stormwater to have more places to go and serves as “the greatest value that we could see in reducing flooding,” Needham Sustainability Manager Gabby Queenan said.

“Stormwater runoff is one of the biggest contributors to flooding in Needham,” she said, “and low-impact development, or LID practices, are basically a way to help manage some of that stormwater by identifying opportunities to actually reduce the amount of pavement that’s getting put in.”

Queenan referred to the Rosemary Recreation Complex lower parking lot, which was designed with porous asphalt that “allows the water to infiltrate, rather than just washing over and picking up sediment and debris.” Following the recent grant allocation, the town plans to analyze its existing parking and find ways to decrease impervious cover through June 2026, Queenan said.

The “1-in-1,000-year storm” Needham experienced in August 2023 could be a more regular occurrence — Queenan said the town can expect a nearly 10% increase in precipitation by 2030 and a 25% increase in days of precipitation above one inch by 2050.

“As climate change is increasing, the frequency of a lot of these short-term extreme flooding events that are stormwater-related [is increasing],” Queenan said. “Managing stormwater runoff is critical to make sure that we are resilient to these future precipitation events.”

Needham received an additional grant for $14,000 from the EEA in March, intended for water efficiency improvements at Memorial Field. The current irrigation system, including leaking equipment, will be replaced to better water the field and thereby “minimize water use.”

The town also earned a Metropolitan Area Planning Council grant in March, which will fund a municipal parking lot solar canopy resource guide, as well as a $125,000 grant last August to design a bio-retention basin along Alder Brook and the DeFazio Field parking lot, aimed at improving stormwater management. Queenan will provide an update on the latter project at the Select Board’s Tuesday meeting.

In recent years, the town has overseen projects to increase its stormwater capacity and upgrade its infiltration to accommodate more water. These projects include infiltration work along South Street and dredging at the Needham Reservoir to “increase stormwater capacity and water quality,” according to the town’s website.

The town’s Climate Action Roadmap, published in 2024, lists major climate concerns, including “extreme heat, intense storms, and destructive flooding.” The roadmap warns that “if we do not prepare for climate change, residents will face a range of consequences from increasing costs to repair infrastructure to severe public health impacts.”

Needham earned a Green Communities designation in 2020, which allows the town to qualify for energy-related grants. Queenan said they’re currently working to receive a Climate Leader Communities certification, also through the state, that would enable additional grant funding for reducing carbon emissions and increasing infrastructure efficiency.

In his work, Gaertner said he sees many Massachusetts communities “have an oversupply of parking” that has negative impacts on both stormwater drainage and overall temperature. The recent wave of grant funding could address those concerns, he said.

“Part of what Needham is looking to do is to look at the amount of parking it requires, as well as the standards for how it builds its parking, so that the stormwater runoff from the parking and other things can be addressed,” Gaertner said. “We very much want to help with urban heat islands and those issues associated with pavements and buildings, and we thought this project might be one that could help not just Needham, but other communities with their approach to dealing with heat.”

Sylvie Simmons is a graduating senior at Dana Hall School in Wellesley interning with Needham Local. In the fall, she plans to pursue a major in media studies and continue her interest in journalism at Pitzer College.