BPCA Hosts Public Hearing About North/West Resiliency Project
On September 18, the Battery Park City Authority hosted a public hearing at Stuyvesant High School to review the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for its North/West Resiliency Project. This hearing began with a presentation summarizing the DEIS. All questions raised by the audience were recorded, and detailed answers provided in writing when the DEIS is updated as a Final Environmental Impact Statement in December.
All of these steps are mandated under the New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act. At the same time, the BPCA is also complying with the local version of this statute, the City Environmental Quality Review. Both laws require government agencies to document possible negative impacts from any project they are considering, and to formulate mitigation strategies to address these concerns.
The North/West Resiliency Project — now budgeted at approximately $1.6 billion — is expected to start construction in late 2025 (after Wagner Park, currently undergoing reconstruction for a separate phase of the BPCA’s resiliency plans, has reopened), and continue for at least five years. The initiative, which passed its 60 percent design milestone earlier this year, aims to create a 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 to the north boundary of Battery Park City, and across West Street to a high point in Tribeca near North Moore and Greenwich Streets.
Despite the ambitious scope and scale of this plan, the DEIS mostly finds that the actions planned by the North/West Resiliency Project will have no significant impacts on categories such as air quality, community facilities, and natural resources.
The DEIS does acknowledge temporary (within the five-year construction period) significant impacts on local quality of life, open space, noise, and transportation. The DEIS outlines preliminary strategies for mitigating each of these impacts, all of which are expected to be resolved when the project is concluded.
This meeting was part of a public comment period that ends October 7, during which any concerned party may share their point of view. Those wishing to submit comments in writing are invited to email nwbpcrinfo@bpca.ny.gov.