BPCA’s Environmental Analysis of North/West Resiliency Plans Enumerates Effects; CB1 Wants to Soften the Impacts
In May, the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) issued the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for its planned North/West Resiliency Project, which seeks to create an integrated coastal flood risk management system – consisting largely of flood walls and deployable gates – stretching from First Place near South Cove, running north along the Esplanade, across to the east side of West Street, and terminating at a high point in Tribeca near North Moore and Greenwich Streets. The project, which is budgeted at approximately $1.6 billion, is expected to start construction later this year and is planned to continue for at least five years.
The final EIS, which runs to more than 3,000 pages, is a legally required step under City and State environmental review laws. The document notes that the North/West Resiliency Project seeks to protect 105 buildings (63 residential, 22 commercial, and 20 public), housing 25,000 residents and sheltering 61,000 jobs. The estimated total value of this property is $15.96 billion.
Throughout May, June, and July, a series of meetings between BPCA officials and various committees of Community Board 1 (CB1) to discuss this project and its EIS yielded a written response from the Board with 23 requests and recommendations.
The EIS examines the anticipated impacts of the North/West Resiliency Project in dozens of categories, characterizing the effects by three criteria: no significant adverse impact, temporary significant adverse impact (usually during the construction period), and operational significant adverse impact (enduring beyond construction, or permanent). For the vast majority of categories – such as air quality, hazardous and contaminated materials, public health, and community facilities – the EIS predicts no significant adverse impact. In one category, natural resources, the BPCA acknowledges that it plans to cut down 435 trees, but classifies this component of the project as entailing no significant adverse impact, because it intends to plant 450 new trees.
The analysis does envision temporary adverse impacts during the five years of construction in the form of open space closures, noise emissions, and transportation disruptions. And the EIS projects one ongoing operational significant adverse impact on transportation, because multiple design features of North/West Resiliency Project will permanently alter the experience of cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers. But the EIS argues that these effects “can be fully mitigated through signal timing,” while also acknowledging “the potential for a combination of moderate effects to significantly impact the neighborhood character long-term.”
In particular, the EIS notes, “mitigation measures have been identified for the construction noise, however… these measures would not fully reduce the noise levels and there would be unavoidable adverse impacts during the construction period,” while also conceding, “while mitigation measures are identified for some of the traffic and pedestrian impacts, there are traffic and pedestrian impacts that would remain unmitigated.” The BPCA’s final EIS also discloses that the agency considered a design scenario that would entail “no unmitigated significant adverse impact[s],” but discarded this as unworkable.
Among the requests and recommendations from CB1 are a push to replace the Upper Room sculpture (at the western end of Albany Street, overlooking the esplanade), which is slated to be removed, with similar public seating. This is part of a broader series of requests to add more seating along and around the walls created by the flood barrier system, as well as shaded areas.
CB1 also urges the BPCA to find new ways to design the flood walls that will line residential buildings along the esplanade. “The community prefers the treatments done around the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which include marble-style, lower-height walls with glass at the top over taller molded concrete barriers,” CB1 notes. “These maintain sight lines, support gathering, and preserve neighborhood character, especially in residential areas and also function for resiliency.” The Board cites the buildings at 50 and 70 Battery Place, 21 South End Avenue, 380 Rector Place, and 375 South End Avenue as locations where this design treatment would be helpful.
For the floodgates planned for the dead ends where local streets (including Albany, Rector, and West Thames, as well as First, Second, and Third Places) meet the esplanade, CB1 says, “the community has requested that the BPCA maximize the size of the openings at each street end to maintain view corridors to the water.”
The response from CB1 concludes by encouraging “the BPCA to step up its engagement with each of the individual residential buildings,” noting, “a joint walkthrough with ALL residential buildings invited should be scheduled in September or, at the latest, early October before plans are fully finalized.”