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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tyler Taba, Director of Resilience at Waterfront Alliance
3:26:15
ยท
135 sec
Tyler Taba from Waterfront Alliance testified in favor of dedicated funding and long-term planning for climate resilience in New York City. He emphasized the urgent need for local spending on climate resilience initiatives due to federal rollbacks and the current impact of climate change on NYC residents.
- Advocated for a $2 billion budget for NYC DEP and an $8.5 million budget for the new Bureau of Coastal Resilience in FY2026
- Urged for expansion of climate resilience projects like Cloudburst and Blue Belt, and implementation of a voluntary buyout program
- Supported retrofit programs like Home Fix and Intro 1067 for groundwater flooding, and rejected the water rental payment in the FY2026 budget
Tyler Taba
3:26:15
Hello.
3:26:16
My name is Tyler Taba.
3:26:17
I'm the director of resilience at the Waterfront Alliance.
3:26:19
Thank you, chair Ressler.
3:26:20
Thank you to the members of the committee.
3:26:22
Thank you to Josh and to chair Gennaro for hosting the hearing today.
3:26:25
I'm grateful to testify today in favor of dedicated funding and long term planning for climate resilience.
3:26:33
Especially in the current context of federal rollbacks on climate regulation and funding, we heard about a little bit at the hearing today, local spending on climate resilience cannot be lost or minimized.
3:26:43
Nearly 14% of New Yorkers live within or adjacent to the one hundred year flood plain.
3:26:48
Nearly 78% of New Yorkers have an urban heat index of eight degrees Fahrenheit or higher, and we strongly urge the city's budget to reflect the reality that climate change is already here and affecting millions of residents today.
3:27:00
Waterfront Alliance strongly supports a $2,000,000,000 budget for the New York City DEP.
3:27:05
We applaud the formation of the new Bureau of Coastal Resilience within DEP which we heard about here today as as part of commitments made in the latest Plan YC.
3:27:13
Specifically, we're advocating for a budget for the new Bureau of Coastal Resilience in fiscal year twenty six of 8 and a half million dollars.
3:27:21
Additionally, we're looking for long term and dedicated funding to expand the city's current portfolio of climate resilience projects, many of which were talked about today, the Cloudburst projects, Blue Belt projects, and and the like.
3:27:34
There's also been some efforts made on launching voluntary buyout program in the latest plan y c.
3:27:39
However, there's been some issues I believe in terms of figuring out how to fund that long term voluntary buyout program and so we urge the city to leverage part of the $250,000,000 investment from the New York State Environmental Bond Act dedicated towards buyouts as well as identifying other funding sources to support the implementation of this program.
3:27:58
Related to housing, we also support retrofit programs like Home Fix, and also support legislation introduced like Intro ten sixty seven which would support residents with retrofits that are experiencing groundwater flooding.
3:28:12
And the last thing I'll just end on is to is to echo the concerns about the budget and the related to the water rental payment.
3:28:18
We support rejecting the water rental payment in the fiscal year twenty six budget.
3:28:22
There's a lot more in the testimony related to resiliency, waterfront access, maritime, and would be happy to connect and talk more about all those issues.
3:28:29
But thank you for the hearing today.