Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Commissioner Savino and Elijah Hutchinson discuss ULURP as an impediment to coastal resiliency projects
0:26:30
·
3 min
Commissioner Diane Savino observes that ULURP's negative impact on climate resiliency efforts is a less commonly discussed aspect of the process and asks Elijah Hutchinson for specific examples, mentioning the delayed Staten Island seawall.
Hutchinson describes how the sequential nature of ULURP—requiring precise plans early on, followed by extensive reviews and potential redesigns—creates unpredictable timelines and political challenges that delay vital coastal projects.
He emphasizes that fundamental actions needed for waterfront adaptation, like changing street grades or using mapped streets, trigger ULURP, a process established before the realities of climate change were understood.
- Savino highlights the novelty of framing ULURP as a barrier specifically to climate resilience.
- Hutchinson points to the 12-year delay in breaking ground on Red Hook's coastal infrastructure as an example.
- The need for final designs before ULURP review, combined with environmental reviews and public feedback loops, extends project timelines significantly.
- Much of the city's waterfront involves mapped streets or public land, actions on which frequently trigger ULURP.
- Existing waterfront regulations were not created with climate adaptation needs in mind.
Diane Savino
0:26:30
I was thank you, Laila.
0:26:31
I was gonna ask a similar question.
0:26:33
I mean I mean, many people complain about the EULRP process being an impediment to development of any kind.
0:26:38
And, obviously, it was created at a time when it was important and it does play a vital role in planning for the future of communities in New York City and having community input.
0:26:47
But I don't think anyone's ever really identified the Euler process as an impediment to coastal resiliency and or our climate goals.
0:26:55
So it's interesting to hear you present testimony about that, especially since we're sitting right now in, a block away from the waterfront, and this entire community from the South Shore Of Staten Island all the way to the bridge and around were devastated by hurricane Sandy, which is just twelve years ago, and, of course, the coastal communities across the way in Brooklyn all the way out to the Rockaways.
0:27:17
And so I'm just wondering, have we started to take into account the impact of the EULAR process on the redevelopment of these communities, not just the housing that's there or the commercial properties there, but our ability to withstand the next storms?
0:27:32
As right here, we're planning, finally, after twelve years, the the seawall Exactly.
0:27:38
And the complications that go into that so it's twelve years after Sandy, and we have we don't have, you know, one brick in that wall, so to speak.
0:27:45
So can you can you share a little bit of how the Euler process is actually an impediment to that kind of development or that kind of future planning?
Elijah Hutchinson
0:27:54
Yeah.
0:27:54
The Euler process itself, especially because it it involves many cycles of review, when we are thinking of these projects and we even have a vision for what we want to do, we have to engage in a public conversation and neighborhood planning, you know, Staten Island included, Red Hook, another area.
0:28:18
Twelve years later, we're just breaking ground on coastal infrastructure there.
0:28:23
When we have to go through the EULRP process itself, we have to be very clear on what it is that we're going in for so that we don't have to redo the EULRP and that we've met the technical requirements and done the environmental reviews that support the EULRP application.
0:28:38
And that timeline of coming up with the vision, the project design, discussing it with the community, designing it, then going through environments review, scoping out the ULURP actions that'll go through public review, and then maybe getting recommendations and changes and frustrations that might change the design just means that we're in this constant back and forth in terms of process for moving forward a lot of these coastal resilience projects because it creates an unknown timeline and also really complex political dynamics.
0:29:08
We do have a citywide waterfront plan that Department of City Planning puts out.
0:29:13
We do have plan y c.
0:29:15
We have coastal plans established in Coney Island.
0:29:18
We have coastal plans established in the South Bronx and in the Hunts Point, for instance.
0:29:23
Moving forward, this portfolio has been extremely, extremely challenging.
0:29:29
EULRP has been one of the barriers.
0:29:31
The cost of these projects has been another barrier, but it would be really helpful if we could find ways to not have EULRP be something that takes away from what we could do on the waterfront, especially because much of our waterfront is map streets and public land that will include site selection and changing grades when we're talking about elevating streets or changing curb lines, very fundamental things that any coastal project would wanna do.
0:29:59
And none of our waterfront regulations were designed with climate change in mind.
0:30:03
None of our regulations thought about how much we would need to adjust the waterfront.