Committee on Environmental Protection and Waterfronts

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Committee on Environmental Protection and Waterfronts. At this At this time, we ask that you please silence all electronics. If you wish to testify, please see one of the sergeant-at-arms in the back, and at no point, please do not approach the dais. Chair, you may begin. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me to silence my phone.

Let me do that now. I'll just put it away. I'm not going to need it.

Good afternoon. I am Councilmember Jim Gennaro, chair of the Committee on Environmental Protection and Waterfronts. Today we will hold an oversight hearing on coastal resiliency, as well as the following legislation: Intro. 343, sponsored by Councilmember Sandy Nurse, in relation to waiving fees for street crane permits related to solar installations. Intro 931, sponsored by Councilmember Harvey Epstein, in relation to DEP— in relation to requiring DEP to establish a mobile drinking fountain program.

Intro number 936, sponsored by myself, in relation to the creation of a Department of Coastal Protection, which would be tasked with designing and deploying measures and infrastructure to protect the city's shoreline and coast from storms, erosion, and the effects of climate change. We are just about a month away from the 14th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. And this past weekend— The city was hit with a nor'easter, which brought coastal flooding, strong winds, and heavy rains. which unfortunately led to the passing of New Yorker NYCHA employee Leighton Brown, a maintenance supervisor who was tragically struck and killed by a falling tree during the storm.

I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to Mr. Brown's family and friends. The weekend storm coincided with a full moon and high tide, and this confluence of factors led to significant coastal flooding in low-lying waterfront neighborhoods. While the city was spared the worst of these effects, our neighbors in New Jersey were not so lucky. Across the state, the combination of severe storm surge and higher-than-average tide washed away entire stretches of beach, creating significant economic damage and undoing millions of dollars in recent beach renourishment work.

As some of you know, back in 2012— well, I don't think anybody knows this, but I know it. As some of you, as you probably don't know, back in 2012, I introduced a bill that would go on to become Local Law 42 of 2012, codifying the New York City Panel on Climate Change and the Climate Adaptation Task Force.

According to The panel's 2024 report, that is the IPCC, local sea levels are projected to rise between 6 inches, these are their projections, not mine, to rise between 6 inches, local sea levels are projected to rise between 6 inches and approximately 12 inches by the 2030s, 1 to 2 feet by the 2050s, and 2 to 5.5 feet feet by 2100.

I think those estimates are a little high and I'm gonna go off on a tangent for a minute and therein lies, you know, some of the people who criticize climate change and don't believe in it, don't, you know, they don't know, you know, they don't have confidence in it. Back when I was working for the state as the DEP, as the state DEC Deputy Commissioner, we were, for our purposes in DEC, using numbers for sea level projections that were projected by Columbia.

And And the governor's Office of Storm Recovery were using numbers that were generated by my alma mater, Stony Brook University, their Department of Marine— oh God, senior moment— Department of SOMAS, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. And you know, their high-end estimates for sea level rise by X date, whatever it was, were half of what the Columbia projections were.

And so I raised the point with the commissioner of DEC and state government at large. People see state government as kind of like one entity, and we have 2 sets of books for Sea level rise. So if you're at the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery, you're seeing the high-end estimate of like X, and if you look at Columbia's number, the high-end estimate was 2X.

And so we shouldn't have 2 sets of books, and this is why people lose confidence in climate forecasting and sea level rise projections. Because they're like personalities of— the one who was doing it at Stony Brook, he was a Nobel laureate. He's very strict in terms of we don't know something until we know it. If we don't know it, it's not going in the calculus for the projections.

We could be wrong. We can end up— there could be things that we don't know, factors that we don't really— that we think think are out there, but we haven't really studied them enough that they're not going into projections. We're going to be conservative. Whereas some other entities are like, well, you have to build in a little bit of a fudge factor because nature always has something out there that we don't yet know.

Let's use the Ouija board and try to fit it in somehow to account in our current projections That which we don't fully know yet. And so as a scientist, it's always like kind of annoyed me. And so that's 2 minutes of your life you can't get back. Sorry, but hopefully it was enriching about climate science and why people sometimes poke at it, because that's exactly the thing people would say.

New York State's got 2 sets of books on like what climate, you know, on what sea level rise projections are. You know, one of them has got to be wrong, probably both of them. And so that doesn't mean we shouldn't endeavor to figure it out, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to prepare for it, but these are some of the frustrations when you're dealing with people who don't want to even recognize climate change or sea level rise as a thing.

This is fodder for them to throw in our face, and I don't like to serve up things that people are going to throw in our face. That's 3 minutes you can't get back. And so Where were we?

High-end estimates for annual precipitation project, and this is IPCC, project an increase of up to 10% in annual precipitation by the 2030s, 14% by the 2050s, and 30% by 2100. Stronger and more severe storms like this one, like the one this past weekend, are likely to become increasingly common as time goes on. We all know that. This ongoing threat requires a city agency, or in this case, an agency bureau, right there, to holistically plan and manage the city's response.

At this hearing, I'm looking forward to learning about the bureau's burgeoning role in coastal resilience, so that we may codify their important work. And, you know, it's important to understand that You know, the bureau that would be created through this law already exists, but it's not yet codified in law. And so we think it's important to codify it in law so that successive administrations will have no— you know, will have no ability to not continue the work of this important bureau.

I am also looking forward to hearing feedback on the other legislation so that we can ensure that these bills are the best and most effective they can be. I would like to thank the committee staff, senior legislative counsels Natasha Bynum to my right and Sarah Townsend, who's not here at the moment, senior policy analyst Ricky Chawla, financial analyst Tanvir Singh, as well as my legislative director Josh Gachette, who is in the gallery, and there he is.

And thank you, Josh. Thank you. And, um, what? Yeah, yeah. And, and, uh, yeah, and we're joined by, uh, Councilmember Sanchez, a member of this committee, and Councilmember Aviles, not a member of the committee but always a, you know, a real environmental partner of mine, great colleague, good friend. And we're pleased— it's our pleasure to have her.

Okay. All right.

Now I will turn it over to the committee counsel to give the affirmation to the witnesses. Hello. Also, DOB folks, if you want to do it from over there, please raise your right hand. Everyone. You guys too. Thanks. Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before this committee and to respond honestly to councilmember questions?

Great. When you speak, if you could just state your name and title for the record. And let me just get my pen. I have a— as the statement is being read, I make annotations so I can ask questions about it. Oh yeah, I could have just asked for a pen, right? I can't find anything in this bag.

What's that? No, I have a lot of stuff. Okay, I thank this panel. They're all sworn in. I have a copy of your statement. Please proceed with your good testimony.

Terrific. Good afternoon, Chair Gennaro and members of the committee. My name is Beth DeFalco. I'm the Deputy Commissioner for Public Affairs at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. I'm joined today by my colleague Catherine Przybylski, the Assistant Commissioner of Engineering in the Bureau of Coastal Resilience. Services, as well as Jill Hrubecky, Assistant Commissioner of Engineering Services, and Wendy Wan, Borough Commissioner of Central Development Programs from the Department of Buildings.

They're here today to— we're here today to discuss the city's coastal resilience work and then the other legislation as well before the committee. I'd like to begin by speaking about this past weekend's nor'easter. The storm brought high winds, rain, and coastal storm surge, particularly in the communities surrounding Jamaica Bay, Hamilton, and Howard beach areas, in Staten Island's South Beach, on City Island, and in my neighborhood of Red Hook.

Surging high tides overtopped the coastlines repeatedly over 3 days, inundating some low-lying communities. Hundreds of trees were downed, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens, and tragically, as you mentioned, Chair, we lost the life of a NYCHA maintenance worker, Mr. Brown. As tides receded, DEP crews responded across the city to pump out low-lying areas that could not drain naturally.

In partnership with New York City Emergency Management, we continued this response as the storm withdrew from the area on Monday. It's important to understand that pumping only works once the tides go down. Otherwise, whatever we've pumped out is just reflooded with the high tide. DEP also responded to help with the removal of fallen trees. Our forestry crews from upstate, from the watershed upstate, came down to the city to help Parks Department cut up and remove downed trees across streets and parks.

And while the storm brought significant damages from storm surge and high winds, the rainfall was moderate and steady, so we saw only very minor inland stormwater flooding.

Now to coastal resilience, which is obviously one of the reasons that we're here today. As the weekend storm reminded us, New York City is a coastal city. We have 520 miles of shoreline, millions of New Yorkers living and working near the water, and a changing climate that is making the risks that we face more urgent. For too long, cities like New York have largely followed the same cycle.

A major storm hits, we recover, we rebuild, and we move on. But that can't be our long-term strategy. We need to get ahead of the risk. Just as importantly, we need a coordinated citywide approach to coastal resilience, not a collection of individual projects that are planned, built, and maintained in isolation. For us to be successful, we need strong institutional capacity, technical capacity, and financial capacity, which must include state and federal partners and sustained political support.

That work is underway right now at DEP. In 2023, DEP created the Bureau of Coastal Resilience, or BCR as we often call it, to bring greater focus and accountability to this enormous challenge. BCR is responsible for planning the future of our coastline and for the operation and maintenance of the city's growing network of coastal flood protection infrastructure.

This is truly a citywide effort. DEP works closely with Parks, EDC, SBS, DOB, DDC, DOT, City Planning, MOCEJ, and many other partners to move critical coastline resilience projects forward across all 5 boroughs. But DEP isn't simply building coastline resilience. We're building the workforce, the expertise, operating procedures, and the maintenance systems necessary to make sure this infrastructure actually works when New Yorkers need it.

Earlier this year, Mayor Mondame made a significant commitment to this work. He invested $43.2 million to dramatically expand the Bureau of Coastal Resilience. That investment will grow the bureau from just 6 employees to 75. We're adding engineers, planners, field crews, and other flood resilience experts. That matters because the city is entering a new phase of coastal resilience.

We're no longer simply talking about what these projects could look like. Building them, we are operating them, and we need to make sure that they continue protecting New Yorkers for decades to come. Today, BCR oversees 16 active infrastructure projects in various stages of planning, design, and construction. Among the largest are the East Side Coastal Resilience, Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resilience, the U.S.

Army Corps' Staten Island Seawall, Seaport Coastal Resilience, and the Red Hook Coastal Resilience Project, among many others. The East Side Coastal Resilience Project represents a $1.46 billion investment that provides 2.4 miles of coastal protection from East 25th Street to Montgomery Street. It's designed to protect approximately 110,000 New Yorkers, including roughly 28,000 residents of public housing. And it's designed to protect them from a 100-year coastal storm while accounting for projected sea level rise through 2050.

The Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resiliency Project is a $388 million $388 million project that will protect approximately 44,000 residents along a half-mile stretch between Montgomery Streets and the Brooklyn Bridge. The South Shore of Staten Island Seawall is a $2.4 billion project that will protect over 30,000 New Yorkers, where Superstorm Sandy claimed the most lives of any NYC— any New York City bureau— borough, excuse me.

This project rebuilds the FDR Boardwalk with a 5.5-mile-long continuous protection. The $228 million Seaport Coastal Resilience Project will extend protection from the Brooklyn Bridge— from Brooklyn Bridge to John Street. And in Brooklyn, the $208 million Red Hook Coastal Resiliency Project will create approximately 2 miles of protection along the Red Hook waterfront, including the Atlantic Basin and Beard Street, benefiting approximately 6,000 residents.

Over the next 4 years, these and other projects will increasingly move from plans on paper to actual infrastructure Infrastructure protecting New Yorkers. Building infrastructure is not the end of the work. Somebody has to operate and maintain that infrastructure. And it may sound obvious, but this is an entirely new class of city asset, so a new process has to be developed.

In February of 2025, the Bureau of Coastal Resiliency reached an important milestone when it assumed responsibility for the first 12 floodgates and 1.4 miles of floodwall constructed as part of the East Side Coastal Resilience Project. During a coastal storm, those gates can close and help protect communities from storm surge coming off the East River. While the overall ESCROW project is not yet complete, portions already in place can be activated if necessary for hurricanes.

As additional coastline projects are completed, BCR will assume responsibility for more of these assets. At the same time, we have to look beyond the projects already underway. BCR is developing the city's first coastal infrastructure design standards, and an asset management system for coastal resilience infrastructure. The Bureau is also working toward a comprehensive vision for all 520 miles of New York City's coastline, one that considers risk, equity, land use, community needs, and the realities of maintaining this infrastructure over generations.

We need a plan where no one's left behind, but infrastructure— but realistically, that's a huge challenge. The plan needs to be responsive to the priorities of New Yorkers, taking affordability, housing, and safety into account, and we know that won't be easy. Coastal resilience is too big and too complex for any one sector to solve alone. It's a gener— it's a shared challenge requiring a shared solution.

Fully protecting New York City's coastline will require investments measured in tens of billions of dollars, and we could be looking at anywhere from approximately $1 to $2 billion annually over the next 20 to 30 years. The city cannot do this alone. Washington must continue to play a leading role. We're working with our federal and state partners on a number of projects around the city, including several mentioned here today.

We also continue to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and our state partners to advance the New York-New Jersey Harbor and Tributary Study, also known as HATS. In 2022, HATS identified the broader protections we need for coastal protection projects across the region with a $52 billion price tag. But that direction must be matched with sufficient federal funding to move the projects toward construction.

Completing this work is essential to protecting New Yorkers over the coming decades. The scale of HATS underscores that protecting New York City from coastal flooding requires major investments across our shoreline, not just individual projects. We need to be candid about the reality that this level of protection is ongoing and going to be expensive. We cannot simply identify what needs to be built, we also need a realistic plan for how to pay for it, and how to pay and operate and maintain it once it's built.

A floodgate is only useful if it works when you need it, and not just when it's shiny and new, but when the next big storm comes, whether that's tomorrow or 50 years from now. Much of this infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance, and we must invest in protecting the assets we've worked so hard to build. BCR is working with OMB and EDC and the Law Department and MOCEJ to to examine sustainable funding and financing mechanisms, as well as the government structure necessary to manage this growing portfolio.

Getting that piece right is crucial.

Now I'd like to speak about the bills that are also being heard today. Intro 936, the Department of Coastal Protection. This bill would establish a new Department of Coastal Protection to oversee measures and infrastructure and address the growing risks associated with coastal storms and climate change. We appreciate the council's focus and advocacy on this issue greatly. We share the goal behind the legislation.

New York City needs clear responsibility and accountability for coastal resilience. That is precisely why the city created and is now dramatically expanding DEP's Bureau of Coastal Resilience. Over the past several years, we've been building the expertise, staffing, partnership, and operating capacity necessary to manage this work. BCR is already overseeing a growing portfolio of projects. Assuming responsibility for completed infrastructure, developing citywide standards, and planning for the long-term future of our coastline.

As the council considers this legislation, we think it's important to closely look at the institutional structure already being built and make sure that any changes strengthen the city's ability to deliver this work rather than inadvertently fragmenting it. We welcome the opportunity to continue that conversation with the council following today's hearing. Regarding Intro 931 on mobile drinking fountains, this bill would require DEP to maintain a fleet of mobile drinking fountains and deploy them throughout the city when temperatures are expected to exceed 82 degrees.

We absolutely understand that the concern— we absolutely understand the concern behind this bill. Extreme heat is dangerous, and access to drinking water is an important part of the city's response. That said, there are a number of concerns that we have with the legislation as currently written. DEP's first responsibility during periods of extreme heat is to make sure that New Yorkers continue to have safe, reliable drinking water coming out of their taps.

Hot weather places additional demands on our water system and our workforce— things like managing open hydrants and other water conditions. Requiring DEP employees to simultaneously deploy, operate, and maintain a separate fleet of mobile drinking fountains would require significant additional resources and could pull personnel away from the critical water supply and infrastructure responsibilities at exactly the time that we need them most.

We believe there may be better ways to accomplish this goal of increasing access to drinking water during extreme heat. The city's implemented a record number of cooling stations. We've got nearly 600. They're strategically placed around the city providing water and air conditioning, and there are more than 3,400 water fountains in parks around the city. NYSEM and DOT have been testing and launching a number of cooling initiatives such as pop-up misting stations and installing heat adaptation measures in right-of-ways and bus shelters.

We'd be happy to work with the council and our partner agencies to expand existing cooling resources and explore additional options. Intro 343, fees for installation of solar power and energy systems. This bill pertains to waiving the permit fees for cranes used in connection with solar installation. We defer to DOB on this, who manages the city's crane permitting.

DOB supports the intent of the bill and appreciates the need to incentivize property owners to install solar energy systems. The agency looks forward to working with the council to advance legislation to facilitate the installation and use of renewable energy systems. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. New York City has made enormous progress since Hurricane Sandy, but the scale and challenge ahead of us is equally enormous.

We now have billions of dollars of coastal infrastructure moving from planning and design into construction and operation. Our job is to make sure that those investments work together, that somebody is accountable for them, and that most importantly, they're ready when the next storm comes. That's what we are building at DEP. My colleagues and I are happy to take any questions that you might have.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Commissioner. I appreciate your— DEP's testimony. I see a little sidebar with my counsel for a second. Okay, here's our plan. I have a lot of questions. My colleagues have questions, and. So now we're happy to be joined by Councilmember Epstein, who has a bill on. Perfect timing. The administration just spoke about it.

They don't like it. And so we're going to— I think my first order of business, because Councilmember Epstein is in the middle of some huge mega hearing, And he, you know, came over here in order to give voice to his bill. So I want him to, if he'd be so kind, to talk about his bill and to get to his questions for DEP about his bill because he's due back across the street.

So we have that. And then we have a request from DOB to ask them questions about Councilmember Sandy Nurse's solar bill because they're due someplace else also. They have someplace that they have to be. So the way we're going to do it is we're going to have Councilmember Epstein speak about his bill and get to his questions for DEP on his bill.

No, I'm going to give him a little more than— I mean— I don't need more than 5 minutes. 5 minutes to every client. Okay, but it, you know, you know, if you need it, you're my friend, so you can have— that's how I work the committee. If you're my friend, you get more than 5 minutes, you know.

If you're not, you get 2, you know. And so, um, what's that? I was just— the lawyer is just like, oh, you're saying it on the record and stuff like that. And I just like, I'm just kidding, you know. Harvey's not my friend, okay? So Yes, he is. But the 2-minute thing, I just made that up. And so we're going to go to Councilmember Epstein, and then I'm going to ask questions as a favor to DOB because you have someplace to be.

You're welcome. Happy that you're here with us. So I happily recognize Councilmember Epstein. Thank you, Chair, and it's good seeing you. Hope you're feeling better. Yeah, I'm glad to see that you're back here with us. Thanks. And I appreciate going out of order. We're doing e-bike hearing across the street, so I appreciate being taken out of turn.

Yeah, I just wanted to check in because obviously we want to have access to water, especially on hot days, especially in high heat areas in our city, especially not just my district, but across our city. We have a lot of lower-income communities where they don't have access to publicly available water fountains and water stations. And I know during different times, you know, the city's put them out.

Maybe 82 degrees isn't the right temperature. Maybe it should be 90, or maybe it should be 3 days at 90. But do we do a better job making publicly available water available to New Yorkers, especially in, you know, hot days, especially in low-income communities in our city? Well, Councilman, first of all, we very much appreciate your advocacy on this issue, and we're very proud of our product.

So it's not that we don't want to be out there, you know, making sure that people have no issue getting it. That said, I think that some of the logistical problems that we see with the bill, there are large challenges in terms of cost and workforce. So temperature aside, we need 2 people per station. So you're looking at more than 100 people.

More people than we would just be adding to the Bureau of Coastal Resiliency that we just mentioned in order to be able to even staff those. We don't have 100+ fountains. I mean, those are some of the logistical problems. How many fountains do we have available? The ones that we have now that we use for emergencies? 9.

9. I know I've seen them put out like in all sorts of circumstances. So there's a capital request to getting more stations, more fountains. Is that an issue or are you Well, right now we use them for emergency purposes only in the last few years in terms of like water outages or water main break. I've seen them when we do like open streets or on the street or— We've reduced that program pretty significantly because of the overtime costs and also because with increased flooding, we've started to direct resources toward things like flooding town halls and other things.

You know, we found that A lot of those, as much as we would like to be able to do that, there are other ways that are less resource dependent that people can get access to water. I think during especially heat days, more than 600 cooling stations, more than 3,400 water fountains in public parks. The way that this bill is set up right now, millions of dollars it would cost to set this up.

Is there a way to, you know, we obviously keep talking about it, but There's a way to narrowly tailor this to ensure— like, this is my concern, and I see it in parts of my district where there's just not publicly available water fountains and there aren't cooling stations that are readily available for some of our young people.

So your answer is to build more cooling stations instead of just putting out water fountains? Is that what you're suggesting? I would defer to NYSEM on the setup of and the actual locations for those cooling stations, but given that you've already got people staffing those stations there already exist as they exist. That might be one opportunity. I think that this might be something that we could talk about in terms of, is this something that should be DEP's core function?

Money to— the money to pay for this would be the same money that comes from our water rate money, so money that we use for flood protection and mitigation. It's probably worth talking about The idea is noble, whether it belongs in this agency or how it might be done in partnership with other agencies as opposed to DEP doing it by itself.

I hear where you're concerned that maybe DEP may not be the right agency because you're not doing as much publicly facing work in this relationship where other agencies are out on the street providing services to people, OEM, other agencies where they just have a publicly facing, especially during heat events in our city. So you're saying that some collaboration could be a better approach to doing it and not focusing on DEP?

Is that what I hear? Yes, I think that there's another way to do it. Our core focus, especially during heat emergencies, is making sure that our system is operating, closing hydrants, making sure that those core functions and responsibilities are happening. In order to set these up, we'd be using people who do those operations. We don't have enough people in to actually stay with the fountains by themselves.

So if they're not manned, if they're not staffed, people don't always use them as intended, we found in the past. So that's why it might make sense to set it up differently than to just have standalone temporary moving fountains. Okay, I'm happy to have further conversations offline. Thank you, Chair, for taking the time to let me do that.

Yeah, sure, I'm happy to do that. Thank you for your advocacy and putting this bill forward. We're happy to hear it, and We hope we can work something out.

And so you got to go back to the hearing and just give them heck, okay? Thank you. Go get them. Thank you. Go get them. Okay. And now, as I said, we want to accommodate the folks at DOB. This has to do with Intro 343 by Councilmember Nurse about the solar bill. Here's a question. It's a setup and then 2 little— yeah, it's a setup and like 2 questions.

Well, let's just say 3 questions. For the first one, okay.

What type of crane permits are required? Maybe you should get to the witness table. Yes. What type of crane permits are required for the installation of solar panels? And please state your name for the record. Sure. My name is Jill Rebecki. I'm Assistant Commissioner of Engineering Services, and I oversee the Cranes and Derricks Unit. So for the installation of solar panels, there's not like specifically a crane permit for a solar panel.

You just get a crane permit, right? And then however you're going to use it is how you're going to use it. So it's not explicit. And then the follow-up to that is, well, I mean, We're trying to couch this in terms of the type of operation that would be necessary for a solar panel. I mean, there are cranes and there are cranes.

And so, to the extent that we can couch the answers in terms of what might realistically be necessary for the installation of a solar panel, that would be helpful. And so, So the follow-up to that is, how much do these permits cost? And again, I'm thinking in terms of the type of crane operation that you would need to do a solar panel, if you can fit it into that box.

Sure. If I think I understand the question, basically, we'll start with the easy part, that a crane permit is anywhere between $150 and $250 for a permit application. And as far as a crane to install a solar panel, typically, it could more than likely be accomplished with the type of equipment that does not require a crane permit, such as like a— I'm going to use the not right name— the man lift.

Right. Or aerial lift. That's the word. Right. Or something like that. As far as a crane that you need a permit for, I don't think that's necessarily a requirement for an installation of a solar panel. Does that answer your question? Okay, yeah, I mean, yeah, you gave me the price and that's what we were going for, and the background was also helpful.

Do these permits require an engineer or other type of professional to submit the application? So there's the cost to the agency and then to the engineer to figure out what the application— so do you need to engage an engineer in order to fill out the application and submit it? So again, speaking about crane permits generally, regardless of the actual use, I mean, I know the focus is for solar panels, but again, we don't really put how they're going to use it as like a data point that we collect.

So I can't really say how many crane— cranes that require permits or construction equipment that requires a permit. is related to solar panels. So, yeah, but just, you know, generally speaking— Oh, sorry. I remember your original question is to— Yeah. Yes, an engineer is required for— Yeah. So, so, you know, would an engineer have to be engaged in order to properly prepare the application to give to the agency?

Yes. Okay. Sorry about that. Second, second round of questions on this. Has DEP found— has DOB Found that those buildings looking to install solar panels are facing financial barriers due to permitting costs? First time I'm reading the question too. Has DOB found that those buildings looking to install solar panels are facing financial barriers due to permitting costs?

Well, the permitting costs are up to $250, right? So the $250 is— oh, sorry. My name is Wendy Wan. I'm the Borough Commissioner for Central Development Programs at DOB. Speak a little louder, please. Yes. My name is Wendy Wan. I'm the Borough Commissioner at Central Development Programs at DOB. All solar filings for just the solar panel installation comes through my shop.

So in terms of the $250, that's for the crane permit. The actual permit fee for the solar panel installation can vary. depending on the size and the amount of power that is produced by the solar panels. So that— Oh, yeah. So what kind of money are we talking about for that? Let me check my notes. Because the way it works, I'm a novice at this, but— so DOB has to license the crane.

And depending upon what kind of solar installation you're doing, and the scope of it, and the— you know, and how much energy it's going to generate, that's another fee, right? That's right. So the crane would be considered part of the construction equipment permit application. Then the actual planning of the solar panels are its own filings for that installation that usually comes with the construction work to put the panels onto the roof.

So just as a sidebar, We haven't seen too many situations where solar panels require cranes to be installed. Usually they're on roofs— Right, but I'm kind of getting at now— what I'm getting at now is, what would an entity that wants to do this have to pay the department in terms of a permit or fee or whatever for the actual solar panel itself?

It's typically— Depends on what— how big of a system they're doing. Generally, it's about anywhere from $5 to $13 a kilowatt that you're producing on the panels. So it's completely dependent on the size of the system. Right. So $5 to $13 a kilowatt. Yes. And, um, okay, so we can do the math based on that, right? I'm sorry, I should clarify.

That's the cost of the installation. And then we take— it's considered an alteration. So the fee is— I forget, like The minimum payment— minimum permit fee is $290, and then it's in our fee table. So then it's every $1,000, it's another— I forget the exact number— $10 per every $1,000 after that. Okay. Oh, and we can confirm that number for you.

Okay. Not that one, right? We're not doing that. Okay. Has DOB noticed a reduction in permit requests for solar installations coinciding with the loss of subsidies at the federal level? Yes. Since the federal tax credit was expired last summer, we have noticed a decline. Okay. Um, could you estimate how much of a decline, how much of a drop-off?

You know, 10% is different than 80%, you know. It would— uh, in 2024, we had about 9,400, uh, solar filings. In 2025, we had about 8,500. In 2026, so far, we've only had 3,300. Oh, okay. So it's a pretty steep drop-off. Right. The year is not over. Okay, got it. We good? Okay. Thank you very much for your good testimony.

We appreciate you being here. And I know you're, you know, running around trying to do a couple things at once. And we're grateful for the opportunity to have you here to answer our questions. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Now it's me, right? Oh boy. Yeah, I'm gonna— I, I have some things. I just need the pen. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm just gonna go through some notes that I— What was that? Did something just beep? Cars. What's that? Cars. Cars. Let me take a sip and compose myself after that. Okay. Thanks for printing, um, my version in large font.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm This is sort of like a theme through your statement. Just as importantly, we need a coordinated citywide approach to coastal resilience, not a collection of individual projects. Okay, just hold that in your mind for a second. And the bureau is Also working toward a comprehensive vision for all 520 miles of New York.

I like that. And then no. Okay. So I agree that it's not a good paradigm to simply have a collection of individual projects done by different entities and not a lot of synchronicity, if that means anything other than the name of an album. But I think it does. And so, you know, cause as you talked about before, you have things in silos.

These folks are doing this, these folks are doing that or whatever. And sort of like, where's the grand plan? And what, so, I agree with you. You don't want just a collection of projects, and I agree that we do need a grand plan. And it seems that, based on your statement here, I'll read it: The borough is also working toward a comprehensive vision for all 520 miles of New York coastline.

And so that is an ongoing project, and that's a deliverable that. Like who's doing it, what are you going to call it, and is this going to be— when you say that you're working towards a comprehensive vision, just to get some clarity on the testimony. So you got the bureau, and then you got Tom, Dick, and Harry doing whatever else they're doing all over the city.

When you talk about a comprehensive vision, being put together by the Bureau, does that encompass all the work that Tom, Dick, and Harry are doing, including what things you would like to do and manage, or are they separate? Just tell me, just, just fill in the vision for me a little bit and how this is going, because what I'm really looking for and what I, you know, sought to establish back in, you know, 2012.

Um, is, you know, one major planning entity that would have the, um, you know, that would have the coastal resiliency ball, so to speak. And, you know, and, and they wouldn't be operating in a silo. They would, you know, branch out and try to get all these other projects that are going on under their pyramid, for lack of a better word, you know, in their corral so that they could be, you know, front and center on how all the projects all over the city play out.

So I don't want to put words in your mouth, but so like, what, you know, help me out here. Catherine can talk a little more about some of the studies. Sure, I look forward to that. Yeah, about some of the studies and other things that we are doing for that comprehensive vision. I think by Tom, Dick, and Harry, we mean things like federal government and DDC and other agencies that are working to build a lot of this infrastructure and then turn it over to us to maintain and operate.

But a big part of it, too, is planning, having people design things that make sense for us to operate, to make sure that our existing infrastructure fits within the vision of things that are being built. Making sure that, you know, we're building pump stations behind seawalls and other things like that that will ensure that our existing infrastructure works with it.

So that is, I think, part of the current vision of how these things will work together. Yeah, I'm not getting a lot from that. And so, you know, it just— let's, you know, your answers are very detailed, and I appreciate when people go to the micro level. And, you know, make sure that they're— but I think we want to, you know, we want to go like above the treetops a little bit.

And, you know, I want to hear how, you know, sort of like the overall management role that the Bureau is going to have regarding managing or at least keeping track of stuff that's going on, as well as the Bureau's vision for incentivizing projects and funding projects and figuring out— I envision the Bureau, and that's what I want to accomplish with this bill.

I envision the Bureau having the grand vision. So you would be like the Oz of coastal resilience and everyone else that's doing whatever they're doing along the yellow brick road, everybody answers to Oz. And so that's what I'm kind of looking for. And to the extent to which that is achievable or that's what you're trying to do, that's what I sort of want to hear about.

Not so much the details of this and that, but sort of like the big grand— it's like the city is doing— and of course, so like the city is doing resilience. And I know they're a federal park and stuff. You can't really boss them around and tell them what to do. You know, so like the HAT study and everything, okay, fine.

But the bureau kind of like knows all, supervises all, or does whatever it can to influence the city along the lines of its grand vision. And so maybe if the Deputy Commissioner could sort of speak to that. Yeah. Just state your name for the record. Hi, Catherine Przybylski, an assistant commissioner. Oh, assistant commissioner. I just promoted you.

Congratulations. Move the mic a little closer to your— a little closer. There we go. How's that? Yeah, it's good. So you said you don't want to put words into our mouth, but I do believe kind of how you described it is really a lot of what we're doing, right? Good. So like one planning entity to carry the ball.

Yes, that is the goal for for the Bureau, and we are getting started on a lot of those pieces. So the visioning, as you mentioned, so a vision for our coast. The city has spent the last several years— If I could just jump in here for a second, because in the testimony, it says that the— because you're talking about the grand vision, the Bureau is working toward a comprehensive vision.

I assume that's going to be a report or some deliverable. Is that right? Right. So we've got the first step of that underway right now. It's called Resilient Infrastructure for Shoreline Edges. We love an acronym, RISE. And so we're working on that, and that'll be done by the end of this year. And that'll be the building blocks of then a comprehensive coastal resilience plan that we, yes, will be a report, but the goal is that the report is a vision for the coast.

Yeah, I meant a plan. Yeah, a plan, a vision that then gets updated over time based on changing science. Um, and, uh, changing conditions. Uh, so, so we need to embark on that with our, with the neighbors and the folks that live within those coastal communities most directly. Um, but of course, also with our legislators, with our state and federal partners, um, and with all of the city agencies.

Mm-hmm. So, so to date, yeah, the, the projects that are happening, the things that are in planning, in design, and in construction, we coordinate across all of those with our partners. Um, so yes, DDC is building a lot of, of infrastructure. They have coordinated with all the agencies during design and continue to with DEP as the operational side, our Bureau of Wastewater Treatment and our BWSO, Water and Sewer Operations, and now also with BCR, who will own and maintain the coastal flood defense pieces that they're building.

Right. And then there are projects in construction in Red Hook as well. So similarly, that's just started in construction. So BCR is more forefront in troubleshooting in the field on that those pieces of coastal defense that they're building. And then you've got the projects that are, that are in design, but not far along in design that the Army Corps is working on, both in Staten Island and in Rockaways.

And so we're influencing the design and coordinating for the city's vision for those projects. Right. So those, those are the pieces that I work on, on the pieces that are in the ground. But what we don't have is a set of a bunch of projects in the pipeline for the, for, to react perhaps to the next storm or to determine where we're going to start building more infrastructure.

And that's what the comprehensive visioning plan is really, really critical for. Okay. I just want to make sure that, you know, that as we move forward and, you know, the Bureau, you know, attains more prominence in this area, that there are not other entities out there that will be like usurping your responsibility, doing their own thing, or, you know, that's— it's Like, siloing is just like the worst thing for me.

It just— it's everybody's go off, like, you know, doing different things. Everybody's competing, you know, competing for funding and stuff. And, and, and I, I, I just, um, um, I'm, I'm heartened to hear, you know, what, what your, um, vision is for that. Um, and, um, yeah. And, and, and so this is, um, Like, I guess, a multi-step planning process because you have RISE.

Absolutely. And then you have, like, other things that are going to come out. And how long do you envision this planning process to, you know, for this work product to be done? Yeah. Right. RISE will be complete at the end of this year. And then there's building blocks and it's typology and really kind of breaking out the coastline.

And then the comprehensive plan— New York State had a whole RISE program. Wait, well, it's different. I know. And then, thank God. Yeah. Thank God. And then, so with the funding that we received this year, it includes funding to both hire planners and procure consultants to support us in developing that plan. So we should start procurement on the actual comprehensive plan next year.

And then it'll take, I believe, I don't have the, 2 years to complete the plan, maybe 3. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, 2 or 3 years to do the whole plan.

And, you know, the first part of it will be a lot of that visioning, listening, understanding, you know, building on RISE, but visioning, listening, understanding with our coastal community and with our agencies and all of the work that they're doing. Okay. Here's a question. You know, when I, I, you know, the council created in the law the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and also created an Office of Resiliency in the mayor's office.

So we've got an Office of Resiliency just sitting over in the mayor's office, and I got no one to blame but myself for creating it in law. And so they're over there, you're over at LFRAC, and so how does that work? How do you work in— collaboration or whatever, because they're going to say, you know, like, we're the original, you know, like, we're the original, you know, resiliency person going back to, like, Dan Zarrilli, you know.

And so, so they're, like, thumping their chest saying, like, we were here first. I, I think that we've had a terrific working relationship, um, with, with that office. And, and in all fairness, yes, we are in Queens, but, you know, we're often Right here. We've got an office across the street that I can see from here. We work with, you know, them hand in glove, I think, on all of these projects.

I don't think that there is a turf war fight happening right now. I think there's too much work. Okay. I'm just saying. And there's plenty of work to be done. Lots of people jumping in and a lot of expertise. Even more coming based on the amount of staff that we're going to have coming with this $43 million.

And to that extent, we want to thank you because That's a lot of your advocacy for this bureau and for the way that this is set up. I think this administration is listening. This is funding that we've been working for for a long time and that you've supported for a long time. So we thank you again for your advocacy.

Yeah, because I always wanted resiliency to proceed. Back before I did that bill, now law, in 2012, I'm like, there's going to be I didn't know its name was going to be Sandy, but this is going to happen. You know, there's— I've always, you know, I— not that I'm pooh-poohing like sea level rise, but I've always thought that, you know, storm surge is, you know, is the big boogeyman and, you know, that could wipe us out tomorrow.

Whereas, you know, storm level rise, you know, I'm not going to live to see it, you know, I mean, to that extent. But it's huge. And what we should do is in a measured, calculated way where everything is figured out in advance and how do we fund it. And now some of the pieces are coming together. And I think this is the capstone on that to establish you folks as the boss of coastal resiliency and— Thank you.

Everybody's got to come to you, talk to you, whatever. And, you know, it's a bad analogy, but I was looking at a Star Wars reference that doesn't quite fit here, so I'm not going to use it. But, you know, you— Okay, okay. You guys are going to be like the Death Star of resilience, but in a good way.

A good Death Star, if you can imagine that. So they'll paint it blue or something like that. Yes. Okay. There it is. I said it. And I want to— when you talk about the— you make reference in the testimony I'll read the paragraph. As the council considers the legislation, we think it is important to look closely at the institutional structure already built and make sure any changes strengthen the city's ability to deliver this work rather than inadvertently fragmenting it.

I just want to hear a little more about the basis of your fear about that. There must be something in the bill that triggered you to say that. Triggered somebody to say it. There it is, you know. I think that the larger point that we'd like to make about this, and this bureau was just started a couple of years ago, and we— when it was started, we didn't have infrastructure coming online in the same way that we do right now.

Right. So, you know, it's one thing theoretically to think about operating floodgates. It's another thing to operate floodgates. You know, they're massive. How many shifts of people do you need? We're learning a lot as these things come online. I think you also see in the testimony that we said we'd like to have more conversations with you about this.

I think that we want to be open-minded to what we're learning, what we're seeing from some of these studies, and what this should look like in the future, and whether or not we should be thinking of any other sort of angles or ways to go about doing this and how it's set up, and to give ourselves some flexibility, I think, in the future to be able to do that.

Yeah, we're, you know, we're not against flexibility. We're for that, and we're totally against fragmenting. We don't want to do that. So, okay, fair enough.

And here's another question out of nowhere. Oh, am I holding you up? You probably just have a couple of things you want to say, right? Okay, let me just do this one thing, then I'm going to put you on. Okay. And so Then I'll go back, I have more prepared questions, but to what extent, and I should know more about this but I don't, to what extent has the Army Corps and the HAT study embraced storm surge barriers so there's— their view of storm surge barriers?

And do you believe that your bureau and the— and, you know, New York City has an entity, you know, as an entity, has the ability to plan for and deploy, you know, storm surge barrier technology, or is that kind of a bridge too far? for our little town on the Hudson to, like, put that together and finance that.

We're talking big money here. So first is, like, the vision of storm surge barriers by the Army Corps, and then, you know, to what ability does our little town have the ability to do that on our own? That's a good question. If I do say so myself. Yes, no, the storm surge barriers that the Army Corps proposed as part of HATS are significant, right?

Across Jamaica Bay, they're significant pieces of infrastructure. The Corps is not actively studying them, just to, you know, to be clear. They're not moving forward on analyzing that. I would say— But they did advance them as projects, right? They have in other places. In the HATS study and in the original Jamaica Bay study, they proposed them at the mouth of Jamaica Bay. as a means to protect against storm surge barriers— sorry, storm surge.

But they have not advanced the study any further than that. I believe right now the city does need the Corps and their expertise in that significant type of study of storm surge barriers. Right. To do that. I believe within the city, yes, there is a lot of experts that could very much study that. But right now, the Corps is not advancing it, and we really need their expertise on the, the what it means for storm surge barriers, both to develop and build and to operate them.

Okay, so they're not, they're not really on the map right now other than— In a report. What's that? Other than in a report, they're on a map. Right. But, you know, and they were thought of as a good idea by the Corps. But, you know, they, I guess they view the world through Available resources and they make decisions.

They need a lot more study, the barriers. Yeah. Okay. Are you aware of the Storm Surge Barrier Working Group or whatever? Malcolm Bowman and those guys? I'm aware of the group. Yes. Yeah. Okay. They— I think they're still meeting, you know. Has anyone from the Bureau ever attended one of their meetings? I would have to check with— yeah.

Yeah. I used to be on it once when I was, you know, at DEC, but then it, you know, I, I'm back here now. Malcolm's a friend of mine, but I just, um, and it's got this whole big working group, people from Columbia and stuff, but I don't know if they're, you know, I don't know if, if a tree falls in the forest and, you know, like, there's no one there, is it Doesn't make a sound.

They talk to themselves, but I don't know how much they get around.

And with that, it is my distinct pleasure to recognize Councilmember Avila for questions for as long as she wants to ask them. He really likes me. Hi, thank you so much, Chair. Thank you so much for being here. I wanted to start I'd love to follow up on a couple of things. In terms of the— I think many folks in Red Hook, your home community, were really happy to hear about this announcement of the creation, and then were also mystified that they had no idea any of this was coming together.

So, I'd love to know, what is going to be the planned community engagement around how— What do we call it? The bureau? What should we call it? The bureau will plan its work moving forward. I think, I mean, you were talking about like what community engagement in terms of like RISE and other reports that we're working on?

Yeah, or how this bureau is going to, like, what is the vision for the bureau and how does the bureau plan to engage those impacted communities? Because I will say folks were very surprised to even hear of its creation. delighted because as an impacted community, this is— and dealing with the construction of the resiliency project right now and knowing that that project is built for a 10-year flood, not a 100-year, and it's going to be inadequate before we get to the big kahuna anyway.

So this is going to be an ongoing issue for this community that— I think especially, and the Red Hook Coastal Resiliency Project is a good example of, I think, how things are evolving. At the time that the project was being, um, looked at and designed, the community was very concerned about the height of floodwalls. And, um, and, and some of the reasons things were designed the way that they were designed and the level of protection that they were designed at was directly from community engagement and community input.

Oh, not the limitations of FEMA, because I was told that much of that, like in one section, there's a wall this big, that that was FEMA limitations and FEMA design. Obviously, this has been going on for a long time. Yeah, it's been— for sure. The community engagement becomes important. I think the Bureau of Coastal Resiliency is incredibly important because we can see even in just the last few years how our thought process about what protection means has evolved.

And especially, I mean, even in just the time that I've been at DEP, the amount of rainstorms and the way that we're thinking about inland flooding versus coastal flooding and how they're intersecting has changed, I think, pretty dramatically in the last few years. And so thinking about what we do to supplement projects down the road. Yeah. Is it going to be a big part of that community engagement?

My, my bureau is going to be very part of that, a big part of that community engagement. We work very closely together We're working together now on different studies that are happening out in Jamaica Bay, in Springfield Creek, on how we are engaging communities, especially in areas where there may or may not be buyouts needed, and how that intersects with the projects that are being planned there, even if they're federal projects or federally funded projects.

So that's the thing that we're coming up with. Also, with the additional money that the administration has put forward, we're going to have a lot more capacity to be able, I think, to do more community outreach. There's no question that we would like to be doing a lot more than we've been able to do. And we're also looking at the way that we do community outreach, I think, very differently.

A big part of what my bureau used to do was a lot of proactive community outreach. And right now, given the amount of storms and, right, the amount of, like, everybody's calling us with a clogged catch basin. But when you have a storm, 25% of the time we're in a flash flood warning or more this year. Yeah.

That really changes, like, people. We were doing proactive community engagement. And I feel like sometimes now we're doing more case management. We've got to think about how we staff and work together on this vision to be able to improve the community engagement. Something we're definitely thinking about and want to work on. I think the continued request that I hear is just the community really wanting to be engaged and real challenges of coordination.

We actually had to call people to tell them to remove one city agency cover the catch basins, with those plastic things and then we have to call the agency to say, there's a lot of rain coming, we're going to flood, can you remove that? Can we figure out a way how that should be an automatic, like there's a storm, you cover the catch basins in a flood— in a community that floods, you should remove that and not wait for the council member to call staff.

Yeah, I think that that's definitely something that, that we're working on, especially also like a lot of that involves contractors, right? And so that's been one of the really big challenges in figuring out how we manage that and work with other agencies to manage that on a more frequent basis. It didn't— we weren't trying to cover it, trying to cover them so people don't pour concrete and other things down them.

No, 100%. And now you're uncovering them and covering them and uncovering them. And it's, it's, it's been nonstop. So the way that we staff and think about how we're staffing our community relations unit and how that's intersecting with our Bureau of Coastal Resilience, I think, is going to be a big part of it. Some of the reason that we're doing those flooding town halls is that sometimes is the way that we can proactively talk to people in a community about what's happening or give them the opportunity to come out and meet with our experts.

And so we're trying to be a little more creative about how we do that in different communities, but we'd like to be doing a lot more of it than we're doing, certainly. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And y'all have done some really great Work, and I know it is a challenge cutting across multiple agencies and many, many contractors.

And so I don't know if that's something that's embedded just as a matter of practice, like when there is an emergency, you uncover these things as a matter of practice in a contract. And if you don't and the city incurs costs because of the flooding as a result of that, then maybe you should take— that hit, as opposed to us constantly paying for inadequate contractors who are doing things they shouldn't be doing.

But in terms of the office, just generally, I think my statement here really is our community would very much like to be engaged on this issue as we are experiencing a resiliency project, which is very unique compared to all the others. The cheapest of the group, but also weaving in and out of private property. And many community members are feeling like it's also a pretty inadequate project for the peninsula itself.

So I think there's a lot more to be done and a lot of concern, and concern around the city's, what they call economic development, but is simply putting more housing in areas that flood. So How is the agency engaged in these conversations? Because there seems to be not a lot of coherence. We're very engaged in those conversations.

And as you can imagine, I'm especially interested in how it is that we are developing and also making sure that we have capacity for it. I think that there's good news that comes with development. We've talked about the unified stormwater rule requiring people to manage more stormwater on their property. So that's the thing that becomes beneficial as you see development, we're seeing that positively in Gowanus where different properties that weren't managing stormwater are now managing stormwater because they've been developed.

But when you're talking about something like BMT, it's going to intersect with the existing infrastructure at the same time that you're building more coastal resilience. So I think that— Well, for those residents, you're not building it for the other residents because it protects them. We are and will. It's a thing that you're going to see. And I think that we're working very, very hard on what it means for the inland or sort of, you know, I think we're talking about the bathtub effect, right?

How we're making sure that the existing properties are taken care of and that we're not creating a problem by trying to address another problem. Yeah. No, I think everyone has identified that. We have not seen any response. to that or a commitment to investing in the infrastructure that would make sure that that is prevented. So, like, it's an acknowledged challenge, but I don't see any agency actually responding in concrete terms to that impact.

So I think obviously these are long ongoing conversations. I think the other thing I just wanted to ask in terms of the resiliency projects, that depend on deploying the barriers and stuff, and as you hire up, is the intention that there will be a team from outside that comes in during storms to deploy these barriers, or is there any thinking about training teams or people of communities that can actually do these that are closer to the barriers themselves?

So the crews that will be deploying the barriers will be a crew housed within BCR. We've started hiring up through the city's hiring. Right now they're hiring through an apprentice program within DEP. There's still a number of postings to go, kind of hiring those crews to be brought up to speed over the next year, year and a half. on the coastal defense system that includes the walls and gates and barriers on the east side of Manhattan, and then in the ones in Red Hook.

Yeah, so it is— it are outside crews inasmuch as they're hired by DEP, and they will come to the neighborhoods and deploy those gates. But then how— Yeah, how you cover such a geographically vast and in some ways transportationally challenged, particularly storm area is a creative element I can't quite wrap my brain around. The last question, in terms of the overall vision for coastal resiliency, how does development factor into how these plans are being envisioned and engaged?

Also, as a council member that has a very large industrial manufacturing working waterfront, I'm seeing the tensions and contradictions of kind of an incoherent policy model around economic development, industrial working waterfront, maritime, housing, and coastal resiliency. So how does that factor into the vision and the management across multiple agencies? I think it'll be a challenge. 100%. Okay, good.

We can agree. I think it'll be a challenge. You know what, one of the first parts as well is, I think we've also mentioned some additional visioning, and we want to embrace the voices and the visions of those different players. As Beth said, you know, developers have a role to play within the city's infrastructure, and the Working Maritime Working Maritime also has an important, important role to play.

And so we really will have to work with those neighborhood communities, the folks that live there, the folks that work there. We're just now getting started. We don't have a vision of what the answer is yet, right? Because we need to develop it. So we really will want to get all of those voices together. And the need for green space, the desire for green space and access to the water.

There are trade-offs with Coastal protection. We can have a large 10-foot wall, but you can't access your waterfront. But New York City is a city of, of their neighborhoods that wanna be on their waterfront. And so we have to balance both those pieces. Yeah, I guess my, my final plug will be as, again, a representative of an industrial manufacturing waterfront, um, that has been utterly disincentivized to use the water when we as a city need to learn how to be with the water, 'cause it is not going anywhere.

It's just getting higher. Um, You know, I would really encourage us to push integration of economic development, integrating into the use of the water, and not just hardlining every edge so that we can look at it as pretty, or to build luxury condos on the water. Like, those feel like where we're headed without the others. So I just want to encourage some— Thank you. deep caution and skepticism on my behalf, but it is really— if we cannot build a resilient city without economic development that is integrated into using the water and getting us to move things on the water.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Appreciate it. You're an honorary member of the committee now. It's not legal, but, you know. Honorary.

Yeah, before I get to the repair course, just something just popped into my head. Now, the Plan YC process, that's kind of its own thing. How do you envision BCR kind of interacting with the whole Plan YC process? Because there are some— there's resiliency stuff that comes out of that too. And so what are your thoughts on that?

We work very closely with MLC-EJ and the development and updates of Plan YC, we being DEP and all the rest of the agencies. I think you could say that the Plan YC and the development of the updates is a collaborative process across the agencies, and we'll continue to participate in that. Mm-hmm. That, I mean, I think that's kind of the easiest.

I mean, the bureau creation was established from a Plan YC initiative. And then where Coastal lives within Plan YC, you know, we're kind of following and tracking those goals or Or pushing on those goals as well. Yeah, I'm always just looking for little tripwires about how everyone's all for cooperation and stuff like that. But I appreciate that.

Something to think about that because you have your own internal planning process and then Plan YC comes along and they got another idea. Feel free to come to me, I'll break the tie if there's any kind of major clash between you and MLCEJ.

Here's from the prepared questions. Did this past weekend's storm require the deployment of any resiliency strategies put in place since Sandy? For example, things like mobile flood barriers and subway station entrance covers? If so, which strategies were deployed and how did they fare? This weekend's storm didn't require that. Subway stations, we mostly saw it was coastal and tidal flooding, not inland flooding as much.

So the difficult part with the with the coastal flooding is that it's, you know, until the tide goes down, you can't start pumping. Otherwise, it just fills right back up. It's like pumping the ocean. Right. So, you know, we know the areas that were likely to get hit. This storm really sat over the city for days, and especially with the full moon, that didn't help things, and a nor'easter.

So really for us, it was just making sure that we were clearing areas that we could and pumping low-lying areas once the tide had gone down. That was the chief responsibility. Do you folks know how much rain we got during this thing? I would have to double-check on the exact precipitation. It was pretty slow, relatively light. We didn't see, we didn't see a lot of reports of inland flooding.

It was really just the coastal areas that were most affected. Yeah, because my part of Queens, I'm like central Queens. I'm like central-eastern Queens and, you know, it's like we missed out on the nor'easter. We had some breezes, didn't really get super heavy rain. I live in Jamaica Estates, which has like huge trees, and I just thought we were gonna be a goner.

And I think one tree fell down in the entirety of the estates. Yeah, and so I— but I, you know, Walton, all the reports about the coast getting beat up, that was— That was hard to process.

Has the Bureau filled its 69 new lines? If not, how many of those positions are filled to date? No, we haven't filled all 69 yet. I believe that we have already started hiring some of the apprentice laborers. And getting them onboarded and are continuing to aggressively work on that hiring process. Yeah, let's talk about these lines. These are for people in, you know, in the field, like doing labor stuff?

Many of them are, but I mean, there are a lot of different types of jobs that will be involved in that. You're going to have planning engineers as well. But I think, you know, a good opportunity for people to do and become apprentice laborers that then turn into laborers and are able to move, you know, up in the system through that experience.

But yeah, you'll have all types of levels. I think right now what we are trying to make sure is that we've got enough people to be able to operate gates as they come online, and they're coming online, you know, more and more quickly in the next year. Okay. So what's like the timeline for the filling of the new lines, do you think?

Yeah, I think they're trying to fill everything by next year. Next year meaning the beginning of next year, the end of next year, or, you know? Literally as soon as possible. It's a full— I know, that didn't help me though. I don't know that we've gotten an exact— Is OMB giving you a hard time? OMB would never give us a hard time.

I don't know what you're talking about. No, it's not that. I think you're just looking at the sheer volume of trying to hire that many people all at once and trying to get through that. So you're going from a bureau of 6 people to 75. So, um, you know, we're moving as fast as, as humanly possible. Okay.

Like, do you have a place for them? I mean, you guys are in the regular LEFRAC, right? I mean, we've got facilities all over the, uh, the city. Yeah, you guys got— you guys are all over. Okay. All right.

Um, next question. Uh, in accordance With Local Law 41 of 2021, MOCEJ published climate resiliency guidelines for the design and construction of covered capital projects. That local law also requires MOCEJ, in consultation with other agencies, to promulgate rules by December 31st of this year to establish a minimum resilience score by which covered projects must be measured. Have you worked with MOCEJ on the resiliency score metric?

Have you consulted with them about their upcoming rulemaking? That is rulemaking on Local Law 21. They didn't do the rulemaking for Local Law 21 yet? No, no, no. Oh, so Local Law 41 is like successive rounds of rulemaking. Okay, I'm not sure I understand the question, but do you? Well, I can, I can give you an answer on a portion of it.

How about that? Right. MOCEJ is leading on the CRDG, the Climate Resilience Design Guidelines enactment for the local law requirements. They're coordinating across all agencies, and particularly within DEP for some of those resilience goals. So yes, we— the agency coordinates with MOCEJ as they're leading on completing that requirement from the local law. Okay. Is the Bureau coordinating with DOB on the creation of its waterfronts Construction code.

What are the Bureau's primary concerns or goals relating to such code? I sit on the committee, one of the committees for the waterfront code, and some— there's one or two other folks from DEP as well, and then folks across all agencies and experts and consultants across the city. So yes, in short, we do coordinate with DOB on the waterfront code development.

I don't have an immediate, like, big concern with the code. I think it'll be really great for consistency in how we build on the waterfront, since there was a little bit crossing jurisdictions previously. So I think it'll be— I think, and throughout the work that they've been leading, it's been really interesting to see those shared conversations trying to tease out what makes it difficult. and unclear in regards to building on the waterfront.

Both. Yeah. So I don't see any big risks right now. Okay. Trying to be optimistic.

If this bill, meaning the one we're hearing today, were to codify the bureau within DEP rather than establishing a separate department, how would that affect the bureau's ability to advocate for resources or achieve its work? I think much like whether or not the Bureau becomes a department, we'd like to give ourselves the flexibility. I think that at the time that there were any conversations about codifying BCR, it was before we had significant resources that this administration has since, you know, provided.

There's no other bureau within DB that's codified. I think we'd like to see how things go with the amount of infrastructure that's coming online. We'd like a little bit of time, just being honest, to see how things go, especially as this bureau is going to get significantly larger and what that means, and just give ourselves a little bit of flexibility.

But we'd like to, I think, continue those conversations and update the council. as our infrastructure is coming online in the next year and as we're making these hires to see if that still makes the— Yeah, but I think we're going to like, you know, we're going to be moving on this bill. So I don't know if we have lots and lots of time before we— I mean, we'll talk whatever you want.

We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. But I don't think we're willing to hang back for a year or so before we advance this. So I'm just saying. Fair enough. We'd still like to continue, I think, to have conversations and update you as more of this infrastructure comes online. Okay.

What's that? Oh, he did. Guess what? I'm done. You know, there you go. What do you want to talk about now? Lunch. Lunch. Okay. Well, no rest for the weary for me. So because we have other excellent witnesses that are going to come forward, and we really appreciate you being here. I know there's some big hoo-ha going on or whatever, and that you know you guys are missing out on just for the great opportunity of looking up at me like I'm.

You should sit in the chair and see what it looks like from there. It doesn't look very friendly, you know. And so, um, thanks very much. It was a pleasure to have you here today. And, um, yeah, stay dry. Probably easy today, but, um, thanks for all your good work during the storm. And, you know, DEP's got us, and so we appreciate that.

Thanks very much. Okay.

And I'm— I'll tell you what, I'm going to call the next panel and then I need a quick break so the panel can get itself together while I just step out for a second. I'll be back in a minute. Looks like Maite Duqueira from the Waterfront Alliance. I don't know if I pronounced that properly. Brianna Kilkenny of Riverkeeper.

And the— yeah, the award for small handwriting goes to Caitlin Villatoro of the New York League of Conservation Voters. And I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. Thank you.

Thank you for your patience. Now we have the— Oh yeah, okay. I now open the hearing for public testimony. I remind members of the public that this is a formal government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain— shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify.

No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the sergeant-at-arms and wait to be recognized.

When recognized, you will have 2 minutes to speak on today's hearing topic, coastal resilience, and legislation being heard today. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the sergeant-at-arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council— C-O-U-N-C-I-L— at council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing.

Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. Okay. And so— And I'll do the slips in the first. We'll hear from Maite from the Waterfront Alliance. Okay, okay. Let me get your testimony here. Okay, thank you. And oh, Sergeant's going to work the clock. Thank you. You know, I'll just remind you, you know, it's. It's like a 2-minute thing, so try to wedge it in there.

Okay? Thank you. Please.

Good afternoon, Chair Gennaro and committee council. My name is Maite Duque, and I'm the climate policy fellow at Waterfront Alliance. We also convene the Rise to Resilience Coalition, which is a coalition of more than 100 organizations advocating for climate resilience citywide and statewide. As you highlighted earlier, we're approaching the 14th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. with New Yorkers continuing to experience coastal flooding, we believe the city needs to be looking forward and planning for the next generation of coastal resilience projects proactively, deliberately, and creatively.

And we strongly support building on the capacity of DEP's Bureau of Coastal Resilience to lead this work. And in that context, we are seeking clarity on Intro 936. It is currently unclear whether the bill is intended to codify the existing bureau or create a separate entity with potential overlapping responsibility. We just want to clarify that part. And we believe any legislation should build on the Bureau's existing mandate and capacity rather than creating duplicative structures, as you noted earlier.

We also encourage the committee to hold another oversight hearing on climate resilience next spring when the administration can report back on everything that they're doing, how they're using that funding, all the hiring that they're planning for, and all the progress on interagency coordination that we're hoping that it progresses, and we're counting on continued council oversight as that work advances.

And finally, it is not on today's agenda, but we urge the committee to hold a future hearing on 662, sponsored by Councilmember Natasha Williams, on groundwater flood risk. This is an increasingly important issue for communities across the city, and it deserves consideration by the committee. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. And yeah, we're aware of Councilmember or Deputy Speaker Williams' bill. I think council just made a note about that, right? And, you know, it's not my— I've got a soft spot for the Waterfront Alliance. Ordinarily, you know, witnesses don't get to— like, we ask the questions. And then, but, you know, regarding clarification on on the ultimate direction of this bill.

You know, that is going to be worked out among all the stakeholders, including you. First environmental organization to ever give me an award. You know, so it was a life preserver. We always appreciate your leadership and happy to work with you. Hero of the Harbor, you know? And, um, and, uh, because I had a boat at the time, I put it on my boat, you know?

It was one of those round ones that you see, like, on cruise ships and stuff like that with the little rope hanging off it or whatever. Um, and, uh, when we would take the boat out to the bay, I would— so, so as order not to lose the kids in the bay— Mm-hmm. You know, I would take several flotation things like a, you know, like a boogie board and, and, and the, and the life preserver you got and some other, some other, like, like a tube or whatever.

Um, and I would, I had a couple of, I'd have, I'd put them on 75 feet. You know, I would tie them to the boat so, so the kids couldn't drift away. Oh. I was in the water too, so. You know, but that was a way to sort of— as long as they were holding that, they were like tied to the boat.

I invented that, by the way. So if you see other boaters doing it, you know, you know that like I started that. And people would come by and they'd say like, oh, did you think of that? You know, because their kids are like floating all over the place and stuff like that, you know. And I'm like, you know, sometimes the kid will come floating along.

I'm like, you want your kid back? You know, and then And yeah, and so that was something I invented, 'cause, you know, my daughter would take her friends out and stuff like that. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I think that, I think the council's gonna really hit me in a second. So thank you very much for your good public testimony.

We look forward to partnering with you as this bill goes down the tracks. And nice plug for the bill by Deputy Speaker Williams.

And so next, Brianna Kilkenny. Oh, okay, Brianna, you're up. Okay, it's just the way the papers were. I'm not skipping over you. You're going to close the show of this panel, so that'll be good. So Brianna, okay, so I got an award from them. I got a hat from you guys, and and so far the lead conservation voters has given me nothing.

Just saying. Just saying. You know. Yeah. A hat, something. You know. Riverkeeper. I I didn't bring my riverkeeper hat, but I you know. She knows I have it. She's seen me in it. Okay, please.

Well, good afternoon. My name is Brianna Kilkenny, and I am the New York City advocacy and policy intern at Riverkeeper. Thank you, Chairperson DiNero and members of the committee, for the opportunity to testify today. Riverkeeper is a member-supported watchdog organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the Hudson River and the waters of New York City. Most New Yorkers today are as at risk from coastal of storm surge as they were 14 years ago when Superstorm Sandy hit.

And the storm this past weekend was a clear example of this, with high tide and storm surge flooding inundating communities across Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. It is clear that action needs to be taken, and Riverkeeper applauds the council for taking leadership on this issue. While we support the intent behind Intro 936, we join our partners in the Rise to Resilience Coalition in our opposition to the creation of a new department.

Thank you. Currently, the Bureau of Coastal Resilience resides within the DEP, and this has allowed the bureau to benefit greatly from DEP's expertise in operating and maintaining large infrastructure, as well as benefiting from DEP's job training pipeline and existing personnel. If the bureau were to be made into its own department, it is likely that both of these benefits would be lost, which could increase costs and timelines for new projects.

Riverkeeper was very glad to see Mayor Nbondani's administration make a historic historic $43 million investment into the bureau this year. With this new funding, increased alignment within the administration, and dedication to pursue a much-needed citywide coastal resilience plan, Riverkeeper strongly requests that the council maintain a Bureau of Coastal Resilience within DEP. Intro 936 should be amended to codify a Bureau of Coastal Resilience within the DEP to ensure that progress and benefits that have been made over the last several years are not erased by a future administration.

If amended as such, Riverkeeper would strongly support the bill. So thank you, Chairman Gennaro, for the opportunity to testify today, and we look forward to working with you on this legislation in the future.

Thank you, Brianna. This is like perfect testimony where it's just like you have a certain point that you want to make, it's right on, you like what the bill does or doesn't do, You give the reasons for it, you make your case. This is really good testimony. We always appreciate, you know, Riverkeeper's, um, you know, uh, you know, great advocacy and great work and their, uh, generous distribution of hats.

Thank you. Okay. And that leaves Caitlin, right? Yes. Apologies about the small handwriting. No, it's fine. I, you know, I don't have the eyes of a young man, despite being very young. Totally not. Okay, please.

Hello, my name is Caitlin Viatoro, and I'm the New York City Policy Fellow at the New York League of Conservation Voters. Thank you, Chair Gennaro and members of the Committee on Environmental Protection, for the opportunity to testify, and we'll be submitting longer testimony. New Yorkers face increasingly frequent and severe rainfall, coastal flooding, storm surge, groundwater flooding, and sea level rise.

Climate change also amplifies the impacts of environmental injustice. Preexisting socioeconomic challenges combined with disproportionate climate change impacts leave low-income and communities of color more vulnerable than others. And we appreciate the leadership of the City Council on investments reaching these communities. We also strongly support the Mamdani administration's FY27 investment in the Bureau of Coastal Resilience to establish critical in-house capacity to manage the city's growing portfolio of shoreline protection assets.

As a member of the Rise to Resilience Coalition, we strongly supported Local Law 122 of 2021, establishing a 5-borough climate adaptation plan. We had hoped to see more progress on this plan by now, but we look forward to working with MOCEJ to develop an equitable and long-term climate adaptation plan in 2021. This plan should work off of previous neighborhood-led plans and include recommendations to protect residents, property, and infrastructure throughout the city.

It should identify climate-vulnerable areas to define— to determine where adaptation measures should first be implemented. Lastly, NYLCV strongly supports allocating more funding for MOCEJ and DEP staffing. and long-term funding for capital projects concerning coastal resilience, green infrastructure, cloudburst management, and Blue Belt programs. And regarding today's bills, we appreciate the intent of Intro 936. However, we believe a Bureau of Coastal Resilience should be permanently established within the DEP, especially given the funding already taking place.

We also support the intent of Intro 931. Access to clean drinking water is essential. We recommend a cost-benefit analysis be conducted to compare costs of a mobile drinking fleet with increased permanent water fountains throughout the city. And we look forward to working with the council and Mamdani administration to prepare for the risks of climate change.

Thank you so much, Caitlin, and we appreciate your good testimony, also very on point and focused. So this is, this is a great panel. So thank you all so much for, you know, being part of this hearing and being part of the work that we're trying to get done. And we know we can always count on you as great partners.

And I have a long history of, you know, collaborating with all of your organizations. And notice how the good environmental, you know, groups showed up today. I'm just— Yeah, forgive me. No, I just have a— You know, I, I— there's other environmental groups that I really like, which is like almost all of them. And so we appreciate you being here today, your patience, and, um, have a little fun.

Okay. And, um, yeah, points well made. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And now I have to read.

We will now turn to remote testimony. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you and the sergeant-at-arms will give you the go-ahead to begin. Please wait for the sergeant to, to announce that you may begin. Thank you. Before delivering your testimony because you would, you know, you run the risk of still being on mute and starting your testimony.

So once— so wait for the sergeant's nod and then we can proceed. I believe we have one witness. Okay. It's my pleasure to recognize Elizabeth Cortez. You may begin.

Good afternoon, Chair Gennaro and members of the committee. My name is Elizabeth Cortez. I am an MPH student at CUNY SPH, speaking in my personal capacity as a New York City resident. I support advancing Intro 931 with a feasible implementation plan and adequate resources. The Health Department's 2026 NYC Heat-Related Mortality Report shows that heat stress death rates are higher among Black and Latino New Yorkers and in lower-income neighborhoods.

As the committee works through staffing and costs, I urge it to preserve the bill's recurring summer service and its priority for high-vulnerability neighborhoods. Heat risks also extend beyond declared emergencies, which supports the bill's approach of providing drinking water on hot days throughout the summer. Thank you. Fountains cannot replace cooling or address every source of heat risk, but making drinking water easier to access in public spaces is a practical complement to cooling in neighborhoods most vulnerable to heat.

The DEP's earlier Water on the Go mobile drinking fountain experience offers lessons, but today's testimony makes it clear that expansion would require substantial new capacity. Therefore, I urge the committee to work with DEP and other relevant agencies on a funded implementation plan that protects core water and emergency services, including consideration of the appropriate lead agency and existing staff sites.

I also recommend annual public reporting on neighborhood coverage, operating hours, and costs so the council can assess whether the program reaches high vulnerability neighborhoods. And how resources are being used. Thank you for considering my testimony.

Thank you very much. We really appreciate you being patient and staying for the whole hearing and giving us the benefit of your views. We really do appreciate that. And, you know, please continue to advocate for what you believe in regarding the environment. We're always here. and willing to hear everybody. So thank you very much. And oh, I'm supposed to do something.

This right here, right? We have one more person who signed up but isn't here, just to be safe. Yes, I recognize Glenn Balofsky, who's not online at the time. I read this now. Okay. If we inadvertently missed anyone who registered to testify today and has yet to be called, please use the Zoom raise hand function if you are testifying remotely, and you will be called in the order that your hand has been raised.

If you are testifying in person, please come to the dais. Seeing none, seeing no one, I will now close the hearing. Thank you to the members. Thank you, members of the administration, members of the public who joined us today. Before I say this hearing is adjourned, where's my opening statement? Which to— where's my opening statement? Okay.

Yes, and I think it's appropriate that I dedicate this hearing to the memory of Layton Brown, the maintenance worker for NYCHA who was tragically killed by the storm by a tree, and we'll have a just a moment of silence for. In his memory, after which I will adjourn the hearing. A moment of silence. May he rest in peace, and may his family be comforted at this time of great strife.

This hearing is adjourned.