A decade after superstorm Sandy devastated the city, much of New York remains vulnerable to devastating floods and $4 billion in federal recovery funds remain unused. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said Thursday.
“The very blunt conclusion is that we’re moving too slowly,” Lander said Thursday in the release of his office’s report on post-disaster spending. We need to be able to implement resilience projects with urgency.”
In 2013, the federal government approved about $15 billion in local relief funds after the storm that killed 43 people in New York City, but most of the money wasn’t available until 2015, AMNY previously reported. Did. As of June, the city has spent about $11 billion (73%) of its funds on rebuilding and upgrading infrastructure.
That’s progress since former Comptroller Scott Stringer reported in 2019 that the city spent just over half of federal funds. According to a 2013 report by the Bloomberg administration, the storm at the end of October 2012 caused $19 billion worth of damage.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency alone has remitted $10.5 billion to New York City to cover costs such as clearing debris and replacing damaged public facilities.
Most of these funds were spent, but the various agencies that administer federal funds used their allocations to varying degrees, the Comptroller’s report shows.
Amy Chester, Managing Director of Rebuild By Design, said: “This is the nature of post-disaster spending. But the federal government needs to make it easier for states and local governments to get their dollars out.
deadlines matter
The largest portion of FEMA’s funding (over $3.1 billion) went to the New York City Housing Department. The New York City Housing Authority has already spent more than 83% on improving building resilience. The work includes replacing heat and hot water systems, installing flood protection, and upgrading generators.
Of the 53 city entities that received FEMA funds, 24 entities used more than 90% of those funds.
Of the 12 agencies that received more than $100 million in FEMA funding, the Economic Development Corporation spent the least, with less than 11% of these funds.
An EDC spokesperson claimed the agency carried out about $1 billion in projects on behalf of other agencies such as Health + Hospitals, Parks & Recreation and the NYPD, which the auditor’s report said Not reflected.
The city also received approximately $4.2 billion in federal disaster recovery grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which will be used to rebuild and reinforce Sandy-affected areas. In March of this year, Congress extended the deadline for disbursement of these funds from 2022 to 2025. The city will have to spend about $321 million (or less than 8%) by then.
Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a new retractable flood barrier (part of the East Side Coastal Resilience Project) at the Asser Levy Recreation Center in July.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the city plans to use up these funds by a deadline.
FEMA funds have no such expiration date.
Lander noted on Thursday that a higher percentage of HUD funds are being used compared to FEMA funds.
“In that case, the deadline works to force the city to work hard to spend those funds on time, and there is no deadline for FEMA funds,” Lander said.
Louise Yeung, Chief Climate Officer for the Office of the Inspector General, said in conversations with various agencies that the process of documenting and justifying damages to FEMA was lengthy and that some projects were technically complex, He said it became clear that any changes to the project would require FEMA approval, all of which would lead to delays.
“According to what we have heard, [from agencies], many of these projects are ongoing. It’s just been taking a really long time,” Yeung said at a Lander press conference on Thursday. He added that it is possible to ensure that
long game
Major projects to address climate change take a long time to plan and launch. Some coastal resilience projects currently underway have not been implemented for several years and represent only a fraction of the total budget ever spent.
For example, City Hall has allocated only 13.3% of the total budget of $1.9 billion for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project on the Lower East Side. This is different from what is shown in the Mayor’s Office of Home Recovery Operations Sandy Funding. tracker. The latter tracker only accounts for federally funded expenditures, not the total budget, which includes local government commitments for projects.
City agencies also contribute as much as 1% of the $103 million budgeted to raise the shorelines of nearby areas such as Old Howard Beach, Gowanus, Canarsie and Coney Island Creek, according to regulators’ calculations. Haven’t spent it yet. The Sandy Funding Tracker shows that over 41% of his federal funding is spent on the same project.
The city spent just 6.3% of the Hunts Point Resilience Project to install battery storage and solar panels in two public schools. An EDC spokesperson indicated that construction on the project will begin in early 2023.
Rebecca Fishman, senior policy adviser for climate and environmental justice in the mayor’s office, acknowledged at a separate event Wednesday hosted by the Urban Green Council that New York has fallen behind on some initiatives.
“We need to accelerate the implementation of holistic resilience programs in places that are not yet protected. This will require accelerating both the capital project process, the funding process and the regulatory process. I think,” said Fishman.
Still, she argued, the city is better prepared than it was a decade ago, as investments have been made to rebuild, acquire, and improve real estate, as well as bolster infrastructure.
Even if work has been done so far, it warns that there is about $176 billion worth of real estate, excluding critical infrastructure, in areas at risk of so-called once-in-a-century floods. I was.
According to Lander, this is a 44% increase in value since Sandy, and its value is expected to increase another 38% to about $242 billion by the 2050s.
“If they disappear, we lose whatever the tax base is,” Chester said.
