Urban development without water: the story of Richmond Park's water woes

I have always known Richmond Park to be a quiet community, made up of mostly one story houses and small apartment blocks built in the 80’s. Growing up, I remember this place as a place of flourishing green grass, where families would regularly host events, and gather for lawn picnics.

Today, Richmond Park’s close knit community is witnessing rapid changes to its landscape, like this modern building, which was built a few years ago, and required trees be taken down to create space for it.

As a kid, I was always able to predict the weather when going to school. If it was a rainy day, I knew it would be difficult to get home, as the roads would usually get flooded, and there would be no buses. My friends and I would have to walk home on foot through the flooded streets.

15 years on, our streets still get flooded, more so than before. But the water overflowing on our streets contrasts with the taps in our houses. Our water catchment systems, which were initially set up for a small residential community, have been running drier each year.

In addition to floods, Richmond Park struggles with heat and hot air in summer. Back in the day, the heat was not the major challenge it is now, but these days, it is so bad that the fan in My sisters house Anika is blowing out hot air, and inside has become suffocating.

Anika and Neil now live in my mother’s old house, which is where I grew up as a kid. Their roof pictured here is a place of relaxation and refuge from the heat on the lower floors. Sometimes, in summer they and their neighbours will stay out here until the temperature cools down around midnight.

Though plastic bottles are usually frowned upon, here, they are a lifeline. In summer, they are used throughout the day to do basic chores, and to shower, when the pipes run empty.

Growing up I remember it was already challenging to get water at my mother’s house in summer days. Water restrictions would be put in place, and water pipes would lock off at 6am in the morning, until 6pm in the evening, between the months of June to September.

15 years on, drought has become so bad that water lock offs now start as early as April, which means for half of the year, Anika and Neil wake up before 6am to fill water bottles

All houses in Richmond Park get water through a piping system, which connects to a nearby dam. In recent years, significant declines in rainfall have caused droughts island-wide. The Richmond Park dam has been drying up, and as a result, the National Water Commission (NWC) has had to put harsher restrictions in place.

But there is more to this story. In Richmond Park, some streets get lock offs, while others don’t. For some reason, my mothers’ new house, which is located just a few streets away, gets no water cutoff at all - just lower water pressure. It is said that the National Water Commission decides which areas of Richmond park should be subjected to restrictions. This block just happens to be one of the unlucky ones.

My sister is a lover of plants and waters them every day. In the past, she and my mother would place wash basins outside in strategic points, to collect rainwater for all our plants. But now, with the heatwave and drought, there is not enough rainwater and it has been really hard to keep plants alive. Anika has to use tap water to water them, but there is also not enough of that, so she has to prioritise.

My sister suffers with asthma and cannot breathe in this air. When the stress of the heat and the lack of water is too much for her and her family to manage, they venture to our mother’s house for cool relief.

In recent years businesses have started coming into this neighbourhood to establish their operations, and some residents have ended up selling their properties to developers, and deciding to leave the much-loved community.

This garage is an example of a new business encroaching upon green space near residential areas. But constructions like this one have also had serious implications for our already restricted water supply. They have added stress on the existing water infrastructure, which was never adapted to meet the demands of a growing business community.

Like the majority of people in the area, Anika has lived here whole life. But life looks very different now, and Anika and her family are bearing the brunt of a rapidly changing climate and poor water infrastructure.

Yet, as residents increasingly struggle to live, the surrounding area’s response seems to be at odds with what our community needs: businesses are now taking water away from families like Anika's.

The plight of our community's residents reveals a need for more regulation surrounding the establishment of new businesses in the community. Finding balance between the aspirations of high-end ventures, and the basic needs of our family-centered neighborhood will be crucial to the future of families like mine, who have cherished and built this community for decades.