The Alessis' condemned house at 240 Evergreen Ave.

A sign hangs on the Alessis' front door, forbidding them from entering.

Neighbors blame the construction of the day care center for increased flooding in their homes.

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Hamilton may act to stop the construction of a day care center, if an engineer determines that it caused damage that led to the condemnation of a house on Evergreen Avenue.

Carmen and Madge Alessi lived in the house at 240 Evergreen Ave. until it was condemned as structurally unsound by the township after the wall of their basement buckled inward on Aug. 2. Madge Alessi said an engineer for her insurance company told her that constant vibration caused by the nearby construction of a Learning Experience day care center likely caused the damage, though the engineer won't file an official report until Friday Aug. 7.

Now, the Alessis have been forced out of their home, which the township determined was in imminent danger of collapse. They are now staying with their son-in-law.

"It's a hardship for us, but there's not too much we can do about it," said Madge Alessi.

Alessi said she wasn't optimistic that the insurance company would help pay for the damage, which township officials estimated could be between $40,000 and $60,000.

Many of her neighbors have lamented an increase in flooding that they attribute to the loss of the trees at the site of construction. In the past, the trees helped drain the once-swampy area. Now the neighborhood is constantly pumping water out of their basements. Alessi had no problem with this at the time.

"We had one sump pump going. It was fine," she said. "I wasn't complaining."

That changed when damage to the basement wall opened up two-inch cracks, allowing groundwater to come flooding in. To make matters worse, PSE&G cut the house's power after the building was condemmed Sunday, leaving the pump lifeless.

The township came to the Alessis' aid, getting PSE&G to restore power by Monday while the Nottingham Volunteer Fire Company helped drain the basement.

Pat Conti, who lives on the other side of the construction site on Deerwood Avenue, said his detached garage was swamped and that he had never seen so many of his neighbors pumping so much water into the streets, but now he was worried about something worse happening to his house.

"I figured our sump pumps would go around the clock (since the developer cleared the trees in February)," he said. "I didn't figure on foundations cracking."

While Kristen Kline, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said the area had undergone a rainy summer, the precipitation for the year was only 2.6 inches higher than normal, a deviation she called "not overly significant."

Regardless, Conti said, a difference can be seen since the trees came down.

Robert Warney, director of the Community Planning and Compliance for Hamilton, said water pressure was one of the causes the insurance company's engineer would consider when filing his report, in addition to vibration. Warney wouldn't confirm that either caused the damage, since the engineer hasn't filed an official report. If the engineer does determine that construction led to the damage, Warney said that Hamilton Development Associates would have to correct the problem before continuing with construction.

"We'll have to tell the builder that until the situation is mitigated or corrected then we're going to red tag the site and shut it down," he said.

Unless that happens, the township remains powerless to stop the construction, which the planning board first rejected in 2006. However, Hamilton Development Associates appealed and won the right to build.

While the area is zoned for residences, the ordinance allows for one exception: day care centers. The township amended the ordinance after rejecting the construction application, but it was too late to prevent Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg's 2007 decision.

Warney said the developer had done nothing to violate the township's building codes, though inspectors were keeping a close eye on the site.

"So far they've applied for all the necessary permits and everything's been to code," he said.

Now, Conti just wants the project to be finished.

"I just wish they would get it done with," he said.

In the meantime, he would be happy if it were out of sight. Conti, whose complaints in front of the town council helped lead to a meeting between residents and the developers earlier this year, wants to meet with the developers again to convince them to build a fence and start work on landscaping to help hide the site, which Conti called an "eyesore."

Julia Monaghan, another Deerwood Drive resident who spoke with Conti in front of the council, said the drainage and other problems stemming from the construction site were exactly what the two had warned the council about in the spring.

"These were exactly the specific things that we addressed at the council and these were the things that happened," she said.

Photos by: Myles Ma