Nature-based flood control and multi-functional open space solution will mitigate the impacts of extreme rainfall events in New York City low-income housing community.
New York, New York: $8.36 Million
This is a Justice40 project.
History
Clinton Houses is a public housing development in East Harlem. A low-income housing community, more than half of the households live below the national poverty line. East Harlem overall has been historically subjected to mortgage redlining practices, which has contributed to longstanding racial segregation in the community. The Houses and the neighborhood are subject to persistent stormwater flooding, and both the Clinton Houses and the surrounding streets are critical shelter and transportation lifelines for the East Harlem neighborhood.
Project Description
This future BRIC project is the culmination of years of planning, community engagement, and partnerships. The shared goal is making East Harlem more resilient to natural hazards and building the capacity for resilience in a socioeconomically vulnerable, disadvantaged community. Extreme rainfall events including cloudbursts (extreme amount of precipitation in a short period of time) are becoming more frequent, more disruptive, and more dangerous in New York City. The proposed project is the direct result of a 2017 Pre-Disaster Mitigation Advance Assistance award and will be designed to manage up to 1.78 million gallons of rainfall runoff produced during varying levels of rainfall recurrence interval events. The primary mitigation intervention for this proposed project is flood control through nature-based detention and retention basins. The project also addresses extreme heat mitigation strategies using multi-functional open spaces.
The project proposes to install a nature-based, climate-adaptive drainage solution to mitigate damage and disruption from stormwater flooding at and in the vicinity of the Clinton Houses, a NYCHA development in East Harlem, New York. Clinton Houses is part of Community District 11, which is a disadvantaged community with the highest concentration of public housing developments in Manhattan.