HEARTLAND FLOOD: Demolition of Paradise Lakes delayed

The hold-up is possibly preventing a chance for some families to find affordable housing in the area.
Recovery of a flood-damaged Bellevue neighborhood is on hold.
Published: Sep. 27, 2022 at 4:48 PM CDT

BELLEVUE, Neb. (WOWT) - Recovery of a flood-damaged Bellevue neighborhood is on hold. City officials say a lien on the old Paradise Lakes community is causing the delay.

The hold-up is possibly preventing a chance for some families to find affordable housing in the area. Paradise Lakes was completely destroyed when flood waters ran through the neighborhood in 2019. What were once homes to dozens of families sat empty for almost a year.

After that long wait demolition started in April 2020.

Not much has been done here over the last couple of years.

The entire neighborhood has been cleared but there are no signs of anything new going on here. Bellevue Mayor Rusty Hike says the former owner of the property walked away after the flood.

FEMA picked up the lion’s share of the more than $1 million it took to clean the place up. The mayor says now the new owners can’t get permits until a lien that is on the property is worked out.

“Right now we’re working on a plan with them to make payments as they develop, we could always foreclose on it but we want that affordable housing down here and we want to have a nice project down here, so right now we’re working with them,” said Hike.

A community in Bellevue is still trying to recover from a flood that wiped out the entire neighborhood.

Affordable housing was lost when flood waters wiped out Paradise Lakes and that affordable housing like most communities in the country is much needed.

“In Bellevue where we had the flooding just a few years back we did lose over 200 hundred affordable homes when Paradise Lakes was lost and the city has been working has been working very proactively to try to bring affordable housing back to our community,” said Michelle Andahl, president and CEO of the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce.

Bellevue city officials have also been working to make sure flood waters won’t invade this area again.

“If we have the water we had this last time it would keep that water out, so they raised them up as high as three feet in some areas, pretty substantial I think it was a $47 million improvement to the levies,” said Hike.

Mayor Hike says the new owners have been responsive and they’re talking back and forth, the mayor thinks they’ll get things done but right now these empty lots take away an option for families looking for an affordable place to stay.

“You need to have a balance of housing levels it’s wonderful to have the three four five thousand dollar homes but you also need homes at the entry level where families just starting out can come into your community,” said Andahl.

We did reach out to the new owners of the Paradise Lakes property, but so far we have not received a response. The mayor says the city of Bellevue could be on the hook for about $250,000 for the clean-up cost, he says it will be well worth it to get the area developed.