Staff at Washington Houses, instead, which is facing Second Avenue and is partially affected by the 2015 FEMA floodplain, connected Sandy and sensitivity to the high level of emergency (un)preparedness they experienced, as they initially did not know where to go in the aftermath of Sandy, since there continues to be no evacuation shelter in East Harlem (the only one is PS 92 on 222 W 134 Street, in Central Harlem). The East Harlem Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) instructed Washington Houses Tenants, to go to the Dream Charter School, formerly Harlem RBI, which was rebuilt in 2008 on NYCHA property, just next to Washington Houses. Washington Houses was largely spared by Sandy, but narrowly. Yet there are 22,000 people living in this development, some of which have lived all their lives in these units, many with mobility problems and unable to use smart phones. Poor emergency preparedness is tied to a culture of neglect that unfortunately NYCHA is famous for. The interviewee referred to a “lack of sense of belonging ” and to NYCHA inhabitants as having a “culture of disenfranchisement ” which is both influenced by the physical degradation of the properties – some of the basements at Washington Houses have been closed off because of the amounts of rats in them – the severe unreliability of services like heating in winter, the unavailability of NYCHA staff – which deal with complaints through a phone app that many elderly are not trained to use. Faced with issues of such magnitude coastal flooding just fades in the background. Yet mistrust in institutions, stigmatization may all play a detrimental role in the event of a flooding as people prefer to hanker down rather than leaving the premises.
The stigmatizing of NYCHA renters versus homeowners by some NYC authorities is well documented in the study by Graham (2018). Graham attended local community board meetings and other Sandy recovery planning meetings interviewing 50 local residents. Graham talks of there being ‘an invisible divide’ between the homeowners and the public housing tenants, the latter being stigmatized as black people of color, an ‘inferior status’ which rationalized their unequal treatment. One of the reasons for the alienation felt by tenants is clearly of an institutional nature and it here that we observe how issues of recognition are tied with institutional practices: the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has its own resident councils, which lead tenants to focus their efforts on HUD only rather than on community-wide efforts that interest NYCHA tenants. Moreover NYCHA’s “para-governmental” status, allows it to operate with very little managerial and budgetary oversight at the state and local level.
Both coastal and inland flooding exposure are seen as important issues by Community Development Corporations (CDCs), where CDC managers and some of their young staff play a key role in raising the need for evidence of exposure and damages but also for actions to be better prepared for the next big storm and rainfall. CDCs like Hope Inc. and Ascendant, perceived their properties to be vulnerable to ‘blue sky flooding’. This is the type of flooding occurring without stormy weather and influenced by high tides at seas, high ground water table and surface elevation. There is anecdotal evidence that this type of flooding affects basements of properties owned by Hope Inc, which are recurrently flooded, but for which Hope has very little funding for left over after what goes towards regular building maintenance. Moreover, coastal flooding will increasingly become and issues, as a recent study showed that 84% of Hope properties and 35% of Ascendants’ may be affected by coastal flooding by 2050 (Olivotto and Almonte, 2019).
Hope has been receiving a number of violations from ConEd – NYC’s energy company - because as flooding affects basements, officers cannot access gas and water readings stored there. Because of these violations, Hope has been unable to close housing retrofitting deals with for-profit-banks they partner with. Yet there is no way to prove that a violation was issued as the result of flooding in the basement. For both Hope and Ascendant collecting and systematizing evidence – even if anecdotal – of flooding in basements, is an important step towards trying to address even greater issues facing affordable housing in the context of flooding. Hope, for instance, voiced concerns at the new developments built since Sandy in the Hurricane Flood Zone. Although these are going up with new mitigation measures, would their foundations affect the flow of underground water aquifers, causing worse flooding elsewhere, perhaps in CDC homes?
In summary, although the pilot relies on a handful of interviews, perceptions of exposure and sensitivity to coastal and inland flooding in East Harlem vary due to some of the factors I explained above. Coastal flooding exposure was understood in terms of extent of water reach in the aftermath of Sandy, as a legacy of the natural biophysical properties of the land, while inland flooding exposure was connected to rainfall and high-water tables, leading to ‘blue sky flooding’, or as the consequence of newly built developments which may shift aquifer waters elsewhere and worsen flooding when it happens. Some interviewees did not seem to be aware of the jargon ‘inland flooding’ but called flooding anything that had to do with high levels of water affecting people’s ability to carry out their daily lives.
Vulnerability was understood as poor emergency preparedness, aggravated by the existing living conditions of the poor and poorest public housing dwellers. This condition is systemic because it largely results from the under funding of and lack of oversight over NYCHA but is also the result of past planning decisions that in 1957 built these properties in the only place where cheap land was still available, the floodplain, at a time when flooding issues were not on the table. CDCs, instead, understood vulnerability as basement flooding in CDC apartments. Perceptions of vulnerability also varied according to location and perceived area affluence. For instance, interviewee 1 referred to “pockets” of vulnerability in El Barrio, Riverton and on the public housing developments on the shore, but less so are in areas around 5th Avenue, Riverbend to the North, and other housing cooperatives where “economically stable and politically active people” especially in the latter, reside (Interviewee 1).

4.4 Perceptions of Climate Resilience Interventions and of City Efforts

Climate resilience against flooding was perceived as: 1) an issue of land use and building design; 2) an opportunity for ecological designs; 3) a need for better emergency preparedness and emergency funds; 4) an issue of building materials; 5) an opportunity for tax credits and more comprehensive assessment of housing retrofitting costs; 6) as ‘the impossibility’ of relocating lower income households that are most at risk’. All points are discussed in more detail below.
The issue of land use and building design was brought up by both the Community Board and the CDCs. As part of its land use review duties, the Community Board has had discussions with DCP during the review of the Zoning Quality and Affordability Overview, where mitigation measures for new buildings were being drafted, such as giving floor area back if the building was built higher or designating only certain uses on the ground floors (e.g. commercial, rather than residential). Since then, the CB has added specific check marks on a list it keeps to remind CB members what are the most recurrent questions they should be asking to all developers seeking the Boards’ approval, illustrated by this quote “there is a new project that we are considering issuing recommendations for and because of its proximity to the river, on 120th St, it’s going to have to consider what do you with the first couple of floors, what are you putting there, is it going to be a parking space or commercial space or something else. So, this is a dialogue we have at the land use committee”.
Both organizations felt that dealing largely with new building designs wasn’t enough. Although there’s now a requirement for existing buildings to remove boilers from basements and ground floors, the costs of this and other mitigation measures are entirely, for instance, on CDCs property owners, who perceive the necessity of a long-term commitment with the government. For instance, one CDC expressed the need for “underwriting a deal where low income housing are given tax credits to be able to do the necessary mitigation measures”. Another CDC manager mentioned the need for “district wide assessment of the costs of retrofitting existing buildings, as it doesn’t make financial sense that each development does its own”. Housing materials that are more resistant to mold, like sheet rock, were also discussed, but so far neither CDC began any rehabilitation process. Neither CDCs had given significant thought about vacating the ground floor from residential units, there seemed to be too many impossible logistics: “where would people go? What to do with the vacant units? Why would HPD eliminate affordable housing units, when there’s actually more need for them?”
The CB interviewee acknowledged the issue as well: “we had informal conversations about new buildings on a NYCHA Estate as it relates to infill development. If you’re going to have a new building on a NYCHA Estate, the new people living there will be benefiting about the new way of thinking about possible flooding, versus people that are right next to it who won’t. Do you start thinking about well if I have 10 empty apartments in a building do I fix those apartments, move everyone from the ground/first floor into these apartments and then just stop using the first floor for residential, and make a community space or a commercial space”. This is a crucial issue that a procedural justice can daylight, which relates to the potential for unequal distribution of resilience benefits between new and existing developments. NYCHA should be replicating good practices in new buildings also in old ones, but executing works in old buildings is perceived as a problem: “we’ll make a formal recommendation (to the land use committee) at some point but it’s a huge ask because it’s a lot of developments, the executing may be a difficult part ” (Interviewee 1).
Both the CDC and Washington Houses expressed the need for better emergency preparedness, specifically in terms of needing a new evacuation shelter that is outside the floodplain and closer to the hearth of East Harlem. Discussions on this have happened within the frame of the Rezoning Plan but no final decision had been made. Yet shelters are not the only need when housing tenants have mobility issues, something more is needed. The Washington Houses and Dream Charter School teachers cooperated in 2018 to design and distribute an emergency preparedness survey that was answered by 35 households to understand how vulnerable their tenants were: “we discovered that 70% of the respondents had one person with disabilities in their homes” (Interviewee 3). Even though a booklet with the survey results was distributed in different languages with information on what to do in case of evacuation, there still remains a logistical issue to move people with disabilities outside and have sufficient support on the way to the shelter.
Finally, CIVITAS sees flooding as an opportunity to re-think the waterfront, lawns, drainage systems and the whole emergency apparatus. This view, on one hand, stands in contrast to the hard infrastructure, like sea walls, proposed in the Rezoning Plan (Planning, 2016), but is quite aligned with the ongoing Resilience Study by the Parks Dept. (NYC Parks and NYC Planning, 2018) CIVITAS has been doing preliminary background work, with the DEC at State level, to implement the idea of living shorelines in a comprehensive fashion. Living shorelines are a softer solution than bulkheads, preferring natural materials that slow down wave motion or absorb water while providing ecological benefits. The Resilience Study by the Parks Dept, quoted by CIVITAS, highlighted many potential areas, including lawns in front of or within many public housing, that represent “largely unused space and could be repurposed for bios-wales to slow down and absorb storm water”. The interviewee’s experience working as a planner in Miami, played an important role in shaping ideas around what should be done in New York City, where for instance, he maintains that all buildings containing first emergency vehicles should be elevated about floodplain level, at least the garages, so that as soon as flood waters recede, vehicles can reach those in need.
In an earlier email exchange with CIVITAS, I also understand something more fundamental about resilience or that there is a perception that the city acknowledges the need for alternative designs/solutions on paper but the reality is far from it. The Parks department is going to spend over $100 million in East Harlem to connect 125th St and 132nd St. along the Harlem River, where currently there is a wall. CIVITAS has been advocating for a living shoreline instead of bulkheads. This would entail authorities to ‘lose’ 5-10 feet of land but Parks and the administration have refused the idea to lose land, they will not ask for permits for a living shoreline“because it may slow down the project” . This decision is at odds with state regulatory agencies, who instead believe that this can be done. The frustration was clear: “We could be building environmental resiliency and ecological benefits into this new project, but the ”value” of an extra 5-10 feet of grass or benches is determined by Parks to be more valuable than the environment, even though, if you ask the Mayor, Parks, anyone if they support climate change, sea level rise adaptation, the environment, improving water quality, or adding more oysters that would filter more pollutants, they will all answer yes, we are in favor of environmental justice, environmental adaptation… The actions do not support the policies, laws, or public views.”
WeAct, adds an important justice perspective to the considerations above. DEP has spent over $40 million to-date on wetlands restoration and other coastal protections but what remains to be seen if the extent to which developments will encompass community-based plans or be leveraged to gentrify waterfront areas (Santiago et al. , 2015). In my brief conversation with a WeAct community organizer, I found out that none of the ideas proposed in the Northern Manhattan Climate Action Plan, which included, wetland restoration amongst a host of other resiliency objectives, had been seriously taken in consideration by the city.

4.5 Climate Knowledge Production, Access, Use and Sharing

In this part of the study the focus was to collect information about how community groups engage with information about the location and timing of future flooding, what do they use it for, how it is accessed and shared. In general findings suggest that organizations rely on the weather forecast, online websites and tv or on the information given by sister agencies, such as DEP and Parks. This after all makes sense, in big cities the tendency may be to rely on lesser sources of information already packaged for you by organizations that have the means to produce knowledge on climate. This is accompanied by less formal or standardized effort to gather knowledge, such as using weather apps on smart phones but not as far as asking a neighbor on the street, or just knowing the direction the wind is blowing or other natural clues. In some sense knowledge is coming from multiple sites and may be produced quite far away from people’s homes. Yet these knowledge sites come from largely centralized sources, begging the question of whether areas in the ‘countryside’ upstate may rely on less modern forms, or whether cultural differences among New Yorkers may lead to culturally different ways to understand when a hurricane is about to strike.
The information is used to make practical emergency management decisions about the days ahead, illustrated in this statement “I do the same as in a big snow storm: are you going to come into the office, then maybe you check what the Mayor is saying, stay off the streets, or schools ae closed. Same thing applies to a hurricane”. (Interviewee 2) The CB plays a more complex role, one that is more integrated with the web of agencies that provided services to New Yorkers, while at the same time being ‘closer’ to the citizen. When asked what they would do in the event someone would call the CB alerting about a flood, they would seek to understand whether other people are having the same problem, by making phone calls, and if there’s a pattern and depending on its gravity they would either call the police or fire fighters. If the problem seems not life threatening they would convene a public hearing, communicate what they learned about the issue and what other authorities can do to help them: “do we have to talk to the property owner? or multiple property owners? is it a matter of local, federal or state policy?” (Interviewee 1). The atmosphere experienced at the few CB meetings I attended speaks to these words. It’s a space of dialogue, where nobody is turned down but also where board members have answers to your questions, or even if they don’t, they will help you to find it out on your own. At the same time the CB is not so informed as to where should citizens go in case of a hurricane, they rely entirely on COAD’s or CERT’s information and expressed the need for “information to be available to constituents directly, so that they know without needing to contact us. those properties that are in flood zones should have numbers to call to help people deal with the situation presented” (Interviewee 1).
In terms of access to events where knowledge about flooding may be made available three out of four organizations, including WeAct, host events related to climate resilience. CIVITAS organizes hands-on events along the East River Esplanade that engage citizens in waterfront wetland restoration and clean ups. These events indirectly touch upon issues of stormwater drainage and the benefits of living shorelines. WeAct hosts monthly public meetings as well as going out in the community to do advocacy on issues connected to both flooding, energy efficiency and broad environmental and neighborhood justice. Although they largely operate on the Upper West Side, they have engaged with East Harlem’s Rezoning Plan process, for instance, by drafting a map of different land uses and public services with overlaid hurricane zones and the incoming subway line. This view puts the city rezoning map into a different light, it makes one question whether all these vital public facilities should be there since they are within Hurricane Zones 2 and 3. The city rezoning map carefully omits the hurricane zone overlay (Figure 2)