Climate Strategy

How can the next mayor deploy urban design and community organizing to address climate risk in underinvested communities?

Challenges

Many Black and brown New Yorkers are not only facing high housing costs and economic security, they are also seeing the most disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis. Air quality in the Bronx is the worst in the nation, extreme heat is the number one climate killer, and waterfront communities ripped apart by Hurricane Sandy are still suffering from the impacts of flooding. The urgency to act is immediate as the planet overheats and extreme climate events become more frequent.

Our Visions

16.
Mobilize every city agency to lead on climate action.
17.
Fight environmental racism with a community-centered approach.
18.
Aggressively adapt the city’s urban systems to shape a cleaner future.

16.
https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/climate-strategy#16Share
Mobilize every city agency to lead on climate action.
- Challenge: Leadership on climate policy has been concentrated in small teams within the mayor’s office, rather than embedded across every agency. The city’s vast real estate assets – from urban forests to streetscapes – have been drastically underfunded and underused as tools to fight the climate crisis.
- Deepen investment in climate action and explore new revenue streams.
  - Drawing on Montreal’s budget climate testing, lead a major budget realignment based on the New York City Panel on Climate Change’s assessment reports of our current climate reality.
  - Mandate that every new capital project, such as parks, natural areas, streetscapes, buildings, and underground infrastructure, develop a ten-year Maintenance and Funding Plan to ensure ongoing climate and infrastructure resiliency.
  - Drawing on Philadelphia’s green infrastructure mandate, enact a fair and equitable citywide stormwater fee on existing private property via usage.
  - Advocate for environmental impact bonds such as New York State’s Restore Mother Nature Bond Act or federal stimulus funding to finance large-scale climate projects which prioritize and engage historically marginalized communities.
- Equip the Department of Transportation to be a leading agency in climate action.
  - Institute a Chief Climate Officer at the Department of Transportation to ensure the department is meeting its sustainability goals, aggressively reclaiming streetscapes for low-carbon transportation alternatives, and focused on improving air quality in environmental justice communities.
  - Expand and equitably distribute sustainable transportation opportunities based on metrics of need with outer borough dedicated bus lanes, bike lanes, and a quicker transition to an all-electric bus fleet. (See Complete Neighborhoods for more details.)
- Cool the most heat prone neighborhoods with a green infrastructure strategy led by the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, Department of Transportation, Department of Parks & Recreation, and Department of City Planning.
  - Establish Neighborhood Heat Vulnerability Designations that can be incorporated into environmental review to study potential development impacts as a way to mitigate heat island effects, often disproportionately affecting Black and Latino neighborhoods.
  - Expand Street Tree Planting in heat vulnerable neighborhoods, especially in areas surrounding NYCHA or Industrial Business Zones, in partnership with the Department of Environmental Protection.
  - Define and invest deeply in nature-based solutions like a citywide Urban Forestry Plan, Wetland Management Plan and Citywide Trails Plan to maintain the city’s existing urban green space.
  - Prioritize green infrastructure in extreme heat zones or flood zones and expand during routine streetscape upgrades.
- Rethink coastal development projects in collaboration between the Department of City Planning and State and Federal agencies.
  - Appoint a Chief Climate Officer at the Department of City Planning to ensure the department is considering climate impacts of planning efforts and adjusting zoning code and other regulations to meet urgent retrofit needs.
  - Ensure the implementation of zoning for coastal flood resiliency and rewrite regulations to redefine “highest and best use” from a public benefit perspective, incorporating storm resilience, ecosystem restoration, equitable economic development, and quality open space.
  - Explore the creation of “special ecodistricts” to encourage energy efficient and climate-resilient development through zoning bonuses and tax abatements.
  - Drawing on the structure and process of the Lippman Independent Commission, launch a citywide task force of climate scientists, environmental justice activists, and urban designers to advise on intra-city migration and long-term growth patterns in response to future flood risks.
Case Study
Philadelphia, PA – Stormwater Management
17.
https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/climate-strategy#17Share
Fight environmental racism with a community-centered approach.
- Challenge: Historically, environmental impacts from highways, peaker plants, and manufacturing facilities have disproportionately concentrated in Black and brown neighborhoods like the South Bronx, where childhood asthma hospitalization rates are 70% higher than the rest of New York City.
- Launch a Climate Neighborhoods Program with frontline communities that is defined by community leadership.
  - Incorporate a Truth and Reconciliation process that confronts centuries of systemic racism often tied to planning of the built environment.
  - Develop a citywide Community Planning Council of community-based, environmental justice organizations to identify their neighborhood-specific climate risks and infrastructure to support them. (See Community Engagement for more details).
  - Partner with community-based organizations to identify public sites to lead new community-owned renewable energy projects or equitable economic development initiatives tied to clean energy manufacturing.
  - Drawing on San Francisco’s Public Space Stewardship Guide, provide organizing tools that would support equitable maintenance of the public realm and allow for neighborhood-based pilot projects like streetscape flexibility, community composting or green infrastructure projects.
- Raise awareness of possible climate events and foster greater community cohesion around extreme weather.
  - Invest in social infrastructure – such as public libraries, community health centers, and senior centers – that can provide public education, emergency supplies, and shelter during emergencies when provided with the necessary building upgrades.
  - Provide grants to community-based organizations in underinvested communities of color to define on-the-ground resiliency plans during extreme weather events.
  - Manage communications about extreme heat events like other public health emergencies by naming heat waves and broadcasting with mobile messaging.
- Guarantee that low-income New Yorkers will not bear the burden of the city's clean energy transition.
  - Advocate to the NYS Public Utilities Commission for a new electricity rate class for low-income residents to soften the impact of increased energy costs from electrification.
  - Overhaul the City’s property tax system to provide financial relief for energy and utility retrofits, as well as flood-zone building retrofits, for small property owners.
  - Expedite permitting and pre-approvals, reduced permitting application fees, or prioritized Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing applications for retrofit projects contracting M/WBE firms.
  - Increase funding for the NYC Accelerator to lead robust education campaigns and programmatic advisory support for small landlords looking to achieve cost-effective deep energy retrofits over time.
  - Convene environmental justice advocates with the design and development community to find new sites to unlock a community solar grid revolution.
Case Study
San Francisco, CA – Public Space Stewardship Guide
18.
https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/climate-strategy#18Share
Aggressively adapt the city’s urban systems to shape a cleaner future.
- Challenge: As the source of about 70% of the world’s energy-related greenhouse gases, cities like New York must radically transform their carbon emissions over the next decade in order to counteract the devastating social and economic effects from climate change.
- Commit to owning, operating and developing net-zero city assets.
  - Join cities like London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Copenhagen to mandate that all new municipal buildings – from schools to libraries – be net-zero by 2030.
  - Build a new green economy that ties training and employment programs for underserved communities to new energy retrofits on all existing municipal buildings and NYCHA properties, in partnership with the State and Federal governments new mandate for climate action. (See Working Neighborhoods for more details.)
  - Reduce the amount of carbon in municipal construction materials by adopting strict procurement standards in public projects, similar to California’s Buy Clean Act.
  - Drawing on Amsterdam’s “material passports,” implement stricter construction bid and award practices through the Department of Design and Construction and track every component of a building to ensure greater reuse after demolition.
  - Work with the New York State government to explore enabling Con Edison to absorb National Grid for the closure of natural gas peaker plants, often located in communities of color.
- Overhaul the city’s food, energy, and waste systems to ensure environmental justice, food access and carbon reduction through a circular systems approach.
  - Task the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, in partnership with NYCEDC’s FreightNYC program, nonprofit policy organizations, and regional partners to develop a ten-year plan to shift the city’s vast and complex food distribution system toward a more equitable and sustainable network.
  - Invest in community-based partners, like GrowNYC, to map food insecurity and environmental health challenges across all five boroughs, locating priority sites for new nodes for healthy food production – like urban farms and gardens – and food distribution.
  - Reinvest in programs and partnerships between the Department of Sanitation, NYC Parks, community-based organizations, and the design community to develop neighborhood-based composting sites and public education campaigns.
  - Invest in programs and a supportive infrastructure for circular consumer goods that includes sharing platforms, thrift shops, online marketplaces, and repair services.
Case Study
Amsterdam – Materials Passport

Advisors

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin

Urban Strategist

Lee Altman

Senior Associate, SCAPE

Sarah Charlop-Powers

Executive Director and Co-Founder, Natural Areas Conservancy

Jalisa Gilmore

Research Analyst, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA)

Jeff Hebert

President, HR&A Advisors

Elijah Hutchinson

Economic Development Professional

Daphne Lundi

Board Member, BlackSpace

Pallavi Mantha

Sustainability Consultant, Arup

Byron Stigge

Founding Director, Level Infrastructure

These recommendations are authored by Urban Design Forum. We thank our advisors who provided helpful insights, suggestions, and guidance throughout the working group process.

Right to Housing Working Neighborhoods

Climate Strategy

Challenges

Our Visions

Mobilize every city agency to lead on climate action.

Deepen investment in climate action and explore new revenue streams.

Equip the Department of Transportation to be a leading agency in climate action.

Cool the most heat prone neighborhoods with a green infrastructure strategy led by the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, Department of Transportation, Department of Parks & Recreation, and Department of City Planning.

Rethink coastal development projects in collaboration between the Department of City Planning and State and Federal agencies.

Fight environmental racism with a community-centered approach.

Launch a Climate Neighborhoods Program with frontline communities that is defined by community leadership.

Raise awareness of possible climate events and foster greater community cohesion around extreme weather.

Guarantee that low-income New Yorkers will not bear the burden of the city's clean energy transition.

Aggressively adapt the city’s urban systems to shape a cleaner future.

Commit to owning, operating and developing net-zero city assets.

Overhaul the city’s food, energy, and waste systems to ensure environmental justice, food access and carbon reduction through a circular systems approach.

Advisors