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Community Board 1 (CB1) is pushing the Adams administration to allocate preliminary funding for an environmental review of the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan, which covers the nine-tenths of a mile between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery, and contemplates building a network of decks, berms, and breakwaters that will extend into the East River between 90 and 200 feet.
In a resolution enacted at its February 25 monthly meeting, CB1 “strongly urges the Mayor’s Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the City Council to include... $15 million for the FiDi-Seaport Climate Resilience Project’s environmental review-related work in the FY25–26 budget.” Such an environmental study is a crucial preliminary step in authorizing the FiDi-Seaport Master Plan, which cannot proceed until a thorough inventory of all its projected impacts has been completed and circulated for public comment. The study would also guide the project’s design process.
The initial vision for the FiDi-Seaport Master Plan focuses on “passive” flood defense, which translates into refashioning the landscape and elevating the riverbank to create a physical barrier that will stop flood waters. It seeks to offer two levels of flood protection: a lower elevation to address daily tidal flooding and an upper layer to hold back inundations from coastal storms. In this design, landfill will be added close to the existing shoreline, creating new landscapes and waterfront public spaces that will connect to a network of decks. The outermost edge of this complex would rise to an elevation between three and five feet above the current waterline, while its landward side would rise as high as 15 feet.
The plan is estimated to take a minimum of 15 years to build out, although no start or end dates for construction have yet been announced. Its projected budget is upwards of $5.4 billion, but no funds have yet been allocated, save for a federal appropriation of $1.9 million to advance preliminary design work. If the Adams administration commits the $15 million that CB1 is requesting, this would account for approximately three-tenths of one percent of the overall projected outlay.
In a nod to the 14 acres of new land and four acres of new platforms that would be created by the FiDi-Seaport Master Plan, CB1’s resolution also reaffirms the Board’s support “for the expansion of much-needed public space.”
Matthew Fenton
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