Bronx Council for Environmental Quality

BCEQ Reading Room on the Zoning for Coastal Flooding Resiliency

December 13th, 2020 Posted in Educational Environmentalists, Environmental Reviews, Front Page News, Green Infrastructure, mill pond park, nyc, Resiliency and Sustainability

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BCEQ Reading Room on the Zoning for Coastal Flooding Resiliency

From the sound of it, you may think Zoning for Coastal Flooding Resiliency (ZCFR) will protect us from coastal flooding, or ensure our waterfronts are rebuilt naturally to capture storm surges and sea level rise, but it does not. Instead, this proposal may increase the size and height of the surge and waves causing more erosion, and will do little to solve most of our flooding problems from bigger and bigger rainfall events.

FEMA

What this means for the Bronx – see the Bronx map of the FEMA MAP DHANGES VIEWER
Here is a few FEMA comparison reports show there is nothing in it for the Bronx
- Spuyten Duyvil, Marble Hill, Westchester Creek, City Island, Mill Pond Park, Mott Haven, Pier 5
Budget Basics

Zoning Documents

ULURP
Existing zoning text
- 2013 Zoning Text approved citywide
- 2015 Zoning Recovery for 8 CBs in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island
New Proposal
- Land use Application form
- Protect Description – comment due by 12.28.2020
- BP Borough President Borough Board, November 19, 2020
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRH2kdRRwlY

Status of the Environmental Review

Environmental Assessment Statement– the first step
Final Scope of Work – includes comments on the draft scope of work from others
Notice of Completion of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement – comment due 12.28.2020
Draft EIS – we need to comment on this
- Land Use Zoning and Public Policy
- Mitigation
- Irreversible and Irretrievable Commitment of Resources
  - The Proposed Action constitutes an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of potential development sites as a land resource, thereby rendering land use for other purposes infeasible.

Public Documents on Safe Shorefronts

NYC Comptroller Scot Stringer, Safeguarding Our Shores: Protecting New York City’s Coastal Communities from Climate Change (May 2019)
- Buyout programs can also help rescue homeowners facing increasingly unaffordable flood insurance premiums. A 2017 RAND study found that within a sample of New York City areas prone to flooding, the median flood insurance premium for one to four family homes is $3,000 per year.41 The same report found that the cost of flood insurance is economically burdensome for lower income residents. The National Flood Insurance Program currently holds approximately $20 billion in debt, and proposed reforms to the program could potentially raise rates in New York City.42 Forced to either undertake an expensive resiliency retrofit of their home, including elevation, or pay increasingly onerous flood insurance premiums, low and middle-income homeowners may not be able to afford to stay in their homes. Should they qualify, a buyout program could help liberate them from a tenuous financial situation.

Build by Design
- Rebuild by Design Main Web Page -Who lives in the Floodplain:
  - http://rebuildbydesign.org/our-work/research/who-lives-in-nycs-floodplain
    - According to US Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2018 income brackets, a family of 3 is considered low income if their household income is less than $75,120.
    - The current floodplain boundaries are derived from PFIRM 2015. The 2050 floodplain is derived from NPCC3’s 2050 100-year floodplain projection. The 2100 floodplain is derived from NPCC3’s 2100 100-year floodplain projection.
    - These numbers are higher than New York City’s own estimates for multiple reasons: 1) These maps use data from American Community Survey which provides only block groups from 2018. New York City uses census data from 2010; 2) New York City used an approach which counts floodplain blocks as those census (city) blocks whose geographic center intersects the PFIRM 2015 floodplain. (PFIRM2015 is Preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Map from 2015.)
- Rebuild by Design Bronx data:
  - http://rebuildbydesign.org/data/files/1418.pdf