CB1 Challenges City Resiliency Designs for the Battery
Community Board 1 is objecting to the resiliency design selected by City planners for the Battery that will install five flood gates, reduce by half the size of the Oval Lawn, require the loss of 60 to 90 trees, and create a 15-foot tall “gently sloping landform” that will cover the flood protection structures.
This “Southern Tie-In” is the nexus of the FiDi-Seaport resilience project and two adjacent resilience plans: those for the Battery and for Battery Park City. All three will converge at Bowling Green. The “Park/Battery Upland” option recommended by City planners for this confluence of resilience projects is slated to bury or conceal 85 percent of flood barriers beneath new landscape features such as hills and berms, while protecting 60 percent of the Battery (and nearby subway stations) from inundation associated with climate change, sea-level rise, and extreme weather.
But in a resolution enacted at its November 25 meeting, CB1 said it “does not support… the City’s preferred plan and strongly believes the schematic design presented in Alternative Two is the better scheme which provides less floodwall infrastructure, eliminates a flood gate, offers more green space, and better pedestrian access.” This version of the Southern Tie-In would preserve – but require relocating – two popular features of the Battery: the SeaGlass Carousel and the Urban Farm. Under the Park/Battery Upland plan, both would remain at their current locations.
“While the Urban [Farm] and SeaGlass Carousel should be retained,” CB1’s resolution argues, they can be relocated if this “reduces floodwall needs or enables better landscape integration.”
The Alternative Two proposal also buries more of the bulk of a planned floodwall that will run down the spine of the Battery beneath two new acclivities: the Harbor Hilltop and Woodland Lawn landforms. The tradeoffs in this scenario are that this hummock (larger than one envisioned in the Park/Battery Upland plan) would necessitate adjusting the easement of the Battery’s central pathway, and would also impinge on the Bosque, a 4.5-acre woodland garden.
CB1 is critical of both versions of the Southern Tie-In, saying, “the proposed plaza at the Broadway/Bowling Green entrance should be eliminated in favor of greenscape with the retaining of the Oval Lawn in scale and character; visitors should be greeted by the Battery’s greensward, not additional paving.”
The same measure advocates for a “State Street road diet,” a traffic-engineering strategy that reduces the number of travel lanes on a street to make it safer for other users. In this case, CB1 wants the bicycle path relocated to the street from the park. In addition, CB1 asks that any revised design for the Southern Tie-In include a dog run.