Rebuilding with Resilience

THE PROJECT
The Hunts Point Lifelines project was not selected for full implementation, but funding was provided to continue
planning and to support implementation of a pilot project. Upon issuing the award, HUD did not specify a
component of the proposal for the city to implement coming out of the RBD competition. Instead the city was
allocated $20 million in federal funds for continued analysis, study, planning, and community engagement, and
to develop an unspecified resiliency pilot project. HUD, however, has required that the pilot project, identified
through additional studies completed with the RBD funding, provide “independent resiliency benefit” even if
additional phases of work are not completed. 4
To identify topics for further study and implementation, the city convened an Advisory Working Group (AWG) of
members from government, business, and the community several times over 6 months in 2015. The city leveraged
funds from NYC Economic Development Corporation to contract with the Interaction Institute for Social Change
for this stakeholder engagement. The engagement process built upon the ideas generated by the Hunts Point
Lifelines proposal with the purpose of identifying resilience priorities of the local stakeholders. This AWG made
recommendations for resilience priorities to inform the selection of pilot projects that the city could explore
through additional feasibility studies. 5
Through this process, two priority categories were recommended by the AWG: flood-risk-reduction and resilient
energy. 6 Based on these recommendations, as well as HUD requirements, the city announced it would advance
feasibility studies in both priority categories and selected to pursue a resilient energy pilot project. The city
plans to seek additional funding for a flood-risk-reduction project and for a longer-term resilient energy project
depending on the results of the feasibility studies. 7
The city has hired a consulting team to advance the two feasibility studies to help the city identify detailed options
that can be pursued for future implementation. 8 The consulting team started stakeholder engagement and technical
analysis in the summer of 2016. This analysis will build off the ideas put forth in the Lifelines proposal to evaluate
a range of project options for reducing flood risks and increasing energy resilience in the region. The purpose of
these analyses will be to define implementable projects that reflect local stakeholder priorities. The feasibility
analyses will look at 15 to 20 different options for each resilience priority. Each option will be assessed for
technical, legal, environmental, and financial feasibility and stakeholder benefits to winnow down a list of projects
that could be pursued for implementation, subject to the availability of funding and the findings of the studies. The
flood analyses will look at projects that could be implemented in the region to reduce flood risks from both coastal
and inland flooding. A preferred energy resilience pilot project will then be selected and moved into future phases
of design, environmental review, and permitting with the existing allocation of RBD and CDBG-DR funding.
As part of the resilient energy feasibility study, the city also leveraged the results of a microgrid feasibility study
for Hunts Point, which was conducted separately by a consultant with a grant from the New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This study, which was completed in Spring 2016, explores
opportunities for creating a district energy facility that could provide resilient power to the Hunts Point Food
Distribution Center and certain critical community facilities.
85 Chapter 7: Hunts Point Lifelines | Rebuilding with Resilience GEORGETOWN CLIMATE CENTER