By Maia Beriashvili, Lex Brierley, Tracy Cole, and Ben Hitchcock
In about three hours on the morning of September 29, a month’s worth of rain fell on New York. Dramatic flooding washed through much of the city, and residents watched helplessly as water poured into apartment buildings, schools, and subway stations.
Weather events like this are only going to become more common and more severe as man-made climate change further disrupts the environment. A huge range of policy interventions will be required to build resiliency against these threats here in New York. Since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the city has taken some steps to improve its storm management, but much vital work remains. Here, four Wagner Review authors help New York chart a path towards a more resilient future. The stakes are high: There will be another flood, and New York must be ready.
Going green from floor to ceiling
New York City must prioritize the expansion of green infrastructure to mitigate the impact of dangerous weather events. Green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and permeable pavement not only build resilience against storms, but also serve larger, more proactive purposes like promoting environmental stewardship and creating a livable and sustainable future for city residents. Some of these initiatives are underway already, but they should be funded, supported, and scaled.
The city should strengthen its program to incentivize the installation of green roofs. Increasing the financial incentives and tax breaks for property owners who add green roofs would transform the city’s concrete jungle into a lush, sustainable environment. Green roofs not only absorb rainfall, reducing stormwater runoff, but also act as natural insulators, reducing energy consumption and mitigating the urban heat island effect. They also provide habitats for birds and insects, creating pockets of biodiversity in the city. The city currently has a green roof tax abatement, but less than 0.1% of the city’s roofs are green, showing the need for better incentive programs.
Mandated rainwater harvesting and reuse could also bolster the city’s climate change resilience. This would require new construction projects to incorporate rainwater collection systems and reuse the harvested water for non-potable purposes, such as irrigation and flushing toilets. By capturing and reusing rainwater, the demand for freshwater resources would decrease, easing the strain on the city’s water supply and reducing the energy required for water treatment. A bill to increase regulation and standards around rainwater reuse is currently in front of the state legislature’s Environmental Conservation Committee.
Simultaneously, to combat street-level flooding and improve groundwater recharge, the city can incentivize the installation of permeable pavement in parking lots and sidewalks. Permeable pavement allows rainwater to infiltrate the ground, replenishing aquifers and reducing stormwater runoff. This not only reduces the risk of flooding but improves water quality by filtering pollutants before they reach rivers and streams. Currently, more than 70% of the city cannot absorb water, though the city has begun to add more permeable pavement in recent years.
These policies make the city more absorbent when flooding occurs, but also have environmental benefits beyond flood prevention—they would create jobs in the growing green infrastructure sector and position New York as a global leader in sustainability. By embracing sustainable solutions, the city can build resilience, reduce its carbon footprint, and create a healthier and more livable environment for its residents. —Tracy Cole
Keeping the trains on track
The flooding closed or delayed every single one of New York’s train lines. Moving forward, the MTA must improve its climate resilience measures, and the state must allocate more resources to transportation to ensure that the MTA infrastructure can withstand heavy rain.
The MTA should regularly inspect equipment to ensure it can operate during heavy weather. A report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, released after the flooding, showed that the transit agency has been falling down on the job in this area. The Comptroller’s office concluded that in one period from January 2021 to August 2022, just 51 of 72 scheduled inspections took place.
In addition to checking existing equipment, the MTA must actively seek opportunities to renovate the infrastructure to enable functionality during severe weather. The same report found that the MTA’s capital projects were “often incomplete in scope of work, not finished on time or within budget, or insufficiently documented.” The MTA needs to improve its operations to avoid a complete paralysis of the city during future storms.
The transit agency cannot solve these problems alone, however. The state and federal government must allocate more financial and human resources to implement an action plan that will mitigate the issue of transport disruptions during extreme weather.
It is important to note that flooding is often caused by factors beyond the control of just the transit agency, and so devoting resources solely to public transit infrastructure will not be effective by itself. Flooding often results from inadequate drainage systems that are clogged or no longer functional. These problems require huge financial resources to fix. “This is at least a 10-year, if not a 20-year effort, to retrofit the city to increase its ability to absorb a lot more water. And it’s also anywhere between a $100 to $200 billion sewer system upgrade project,” New School professor Timon McPhearson told Vox.
The subway is a complicated system, and improving it is not easy. But ensuring regular inspections of existing equipment and accelerating the renovation of infrastructure are vital steps for the city moving forward. —Maia Beriashvili
Putting people first
Massive infrastructure projects are required to ensure that the city is ready for the rising sea levels and extreme weather associated with climate change. As these projects begin, the city must work with communities who live nearby. Neglecting to engage with the communities affected by new infrastructure will result in impractical projects, wasted taxpayer money, and slowed construction that puts the lives of millions of New Yorkers at risk.
The city’s response to Hurricane Sandy shows the importance of community input. In 2012, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a $1 billion design competition, Rebuild by Design, intended to find innovative solutions to increase resiliency in regions affected by the hurricane. The project that received the largest amount of funding was called the BIG U, a plan to build a 10-mile wall with moveable flood gates around lower Manhattan to protect the area from storm surges.
The designers of the BIG U conducted extensive engagement sessions with the community to identify priorities, needs, and concerns in the local area. The initial BIG U plan had broad support. Then, in 2018, the city changed course, altering the specifics of the plan. The new proposal includes cutting down over 1,000 trees and burying the East River Park. To exacerbate the issue, the project (now projected to cost between $1-3 billion to complete), will only protect lower Manhattan through 2050. After this date, the 10-mile wall will create a “bathtub effect,” for the very area it was supposed to keep dry. The city’s change-up alienated local residents. “We felt betrayed, like we didn’t exist,” the tenants’ association president of a nearby public housing complex told the New York Times after the city announced its new plan.
Another project that also received Rebuild by Design funding shows how to keep residents more involved during the infrastructure design process. The Living Breakwaters project would create a necklace of small, multi-use islands outside of Staten Island that would break waves, reduce erosion, and provide a habitat for local marine animals. Residents in the area did not merely provide feedback at the beginning of the project, but have become important contributors throughout its development. The community has decided both the form and function of these islands, and they will continue to have that power in the future. The project’s guiding principle is to “embrace the change that it represents and to reimagine catastrophe as an opportunity to create a new ecological future.” This can be a model for how to involve locals in major infrastructure decisions. Living Breakwaters is expected to cost $107 million.
The BIG U and the Living Breakwaters projects demonstrate that community input is instrumental as the city reshapes itself to confront climate change. For the city to create an environment in which all its residents can thrive, it is vital to keep communities connected to every phase of the decision making process. —Lex Brierley
Strengthening basement apartments
In 2021, 13 people in New York died when Hurricane Ida flooded their basement apartments. Though no fatalities have been reported as a result of the flooding from Ophelia, residents across the city shared horror stories about basement apartments filling up with dirty water.
At the city and state level, New York must take steps to improve the conditions in the city’s basement and cellar apartments. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers live in basements, and many of these dwellings are unregulated and unsafe.
A web of rules makes it very difficult to bring basement apartments up to code, and so people occupy them illegally rather than making sure safety standards are met. “Legalization would be an expansion of housing regulation to establish what kinds of minimum standards around light and air, around egress, should be put in place for basement apartments,” Sylvia Morse, the policy program manager at the Pratt Center for Community Development, told City & State.
Recent efforts to fix the problem have stalled. Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed Housing Compact included a provision to legalize more basement apartments but failed to progress through the legislature this year. A 2019 pilot program to test basement apartment legalization found just five participants, in part because the legislature slashed its budget to make room for COVID relief spending.
The city and state must try again to make change in this area. A May 2023 report from the Citizens Housing Planning Council (CHPC) outlines possible policy measures. The state should adjust its multiple dwelling law, which is designed to prevent overcrowding, to allow basement apartments. And the city should pass a local law creating a basement apartment legalization program to assist homeowners in rehabbing the units. These changes will help ensure basement apartments are safe for residents, no matter what the weather is like outside. —Ben Hitchcock
