Climate Resiliency and Adaptation
In the next 10 years, urban coastal adaptation in NYC will be driven by the climate justice principle that all New Yorkers should live, learn, work and play in safe, healthy, resilient, and sustainable environments, even as the climate changes.
Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. For the next generation of urban coastal adaptation policies and programs, City agencies must collaborate with communities and each other in new ways to advance climate justice for all New Yorkers, especially those who have been excluded or marginalized based on their race, income, abilities or neighborhoods in which they live. We must look at a wide range of different solutions to adapt to a hotter, wetter city – from designing buildings and infrastructure that can safely withstand flooding to training community-based organizations on how to help vulnerable groups stay cool during heat waves. The five Goals in the Climate Resiliency and Adaptation theme focus on expanding climate risk awareness and action, using climate risk information in public policies and investments, supporting the housing needs of waterfront residents, managing flood risk in NYC’s coastal communities, and promoting climate-resilient design of buildings and infrastructure systems. Through these goals and strategies, the City will continue to proactively and permanently weave urban coastal adaptation into processes for long-term planning and everyday decision-making.
Goal 1. Expand awareness of climate risks and how New Yorkers living and working on the waterfront can take action to adapt to the impacts of climate change
Build a common understanding of local climate risks through sustained conversations between waterfront residents, community leaders, climate and social scientists, private practitioners and government agencies through various programs and platforms.
Expand access to information and other resources for residents and small businesses about flood and heat risks, including timely and accessible information about flood insurance, flood preparedness, heat health and building retrofits.
Goal 2. Apply an understanding of systemic climate risks to guide land use policies and infrastructure investments to support people and neighborhoods in the urban coastal floodplain
GOAL 3
Preserve and create new housing for a mix of incomes in appropriate locations and provide waterfront residents with new resources to manage flood impacts on their homes.
Help meet NYC’s need to preserve and create new housing for a mix of incomes in appropriate locations to encourage healthy, equitable and resilient waterfront neighborhoods.
Advance neighborhood planning initiatives to support the vitality and resiliency of waterfront neighborhoods, consistent with the Coastal Land Use Framework and through the Climate Adaptation Roadmap.
Support the redevelopment of select underused City-owned properties for affordable housing in waterfront neighborhoods, consistent with the Coastal Land Use Framework.
Encourage affordable housing production citywide to enable housing mobility.
Establish programs for tenants and owners in waterfront neighborhoods that are informed by meaningful engagement and neighborhood planning.
Create housing policies and programs that offer financial, technical and programmatic resources to improve housing outcomes for residents and that undo historical patterns of housing injustice and racist housing policies, through the initiatives identified in Where We Live NYC.
Expand community ownership through shared equity housing and economic development models.
Identify new models for coastal land management and community stewardship that reduce long-term climate risks and offer pathways for residents to steward community-oriented uses in partnership with the City.
Promote housing stability through flood retrofit and housing mobility services, prioritizing low- and moderate-income households that are affected by chronic high tide flooding and other compound flooding risks.
Provide flood retrofit services, including technical assistance, financial counseling, construction assistance, and funding to help residents and small landlords retrofit their buildings to reduce risk from flooding.
Pursue federal resources to create programs supporting flood retrofit and housing mobility services for voluntary homeowner and renter participants, prioritizing housing mobility services in areas with chronic flood risk.
Update the NYC Coastal Storm Activation Playbook to enhance interagency coordination for post-storm communication and to equip storm survivors with actionable information on housing reconstruction, flood retrofit, and housing mobility options shortly after a federally declared disaster, when available.
Goal 4. Identify opportunities for coastal flood protection, where feasible and practicable, to manage the impacts of coastal storm surge and high tide flooding
Complete the remaining planned post-Sandy coastal flood protection projects, including in Red Hook, the Rockaway Peninsula, Coney Island, Staten Island South Shore, the East Side of Manhattan and Lower Manhattan.
Incorporate natural and nature-based features into coastal flood protection projects, where feasible and practicable.
Improve interagency and jurisdictional coordination to encourage effective engagement, implementation, operations and maintenance of coastal flood protection projects.
Work with City, State and Federal partners to identify opportunities for future coastal flood protection projects in the areas of all five boroughs where the greatest potential exists to reduce flood vulnerability.
Explore funding sources for new coastal flood protection projects and their ongoing operations and maintenance.
Goal 5. Expand resilient design practices that allow waterfront buildings and infrastructure to withstand the impacts of coastal storms, increased precipitation, extreme heat and sea level rise.
Further incorporate resilient design principles into all public buildings and infrastructure on the waterfront to ensure that new and retrofitted assets withstand increasing climate risk exposure.
Update local regulations to anticipate future flood risks based on the best available climate risk information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the NPCC.
Accelerate the implementation of resilient design in private buildings by expanding technical and design resources available to property owners and tenants in high-heat areas and in areas with flood risk from rainfall and coastal storms.