With rising global temperatures and sea levels, some buyers understandably ask whether climate change is relevant when buying houses for sale in NYC. Climate change is relevant when buying anywhere in the world, so the real question is whether the city is doing anything to protect its citizens from its effects?
Thankfully, the answer is a resounding yes.
There are plans to combat the effects of climate change, so you can continue to eye those condos for sale in NYC with gleeful desire. Let’s take a closer look.
City Plans Flood Protection
Rising sea levels have plagued several low-lying NYC neighborhoods, where the number of tidally related clear-weather flooding events has increased substantially over the past few decades. However, it took the disastrous effects of hurricanes Sandy and Ida to spur the city into serious action.
Since then, the city has formed and released the Financial District and Seaport Climate Resilience Master Plan to protect Lower Manhattan from flooding related to rising sea levels and coastal storms. According to reports, the mayoral administration is also asking Congress for funding for a possible voluntary buyout program to be implemented in other parts of the city.
After Sandy, the state launched a $276 million pilot program to buy out several hundred homes in Staten Island and other areas of the state. The state also prohibited future developments on that land. Additionally, the city has zoned special coastal risk districts in which new development is limited in particularly flood-prone areas. Given this, you can look at new condos for sale in NYC without being worried that you’ll be living in an area that’s at high risk of serious flooding.
The Plan To Protect Lower Manhattan
New York City Economic Development (NYCED) and the Mayor’s Office of Climate Resiliency released the Master Plan in December last year. A blueprint for comprehensive flood defense infrastructure, the plan reimagines the shoreline from the Battery to Brooklyn Bridge through the creation of a waterfront resilient enough to withstand rising sea levels and severe coastal storms.
The project should be completed within 15 to 20 years at a cost of $5 to $7 billion, and it fills in the last remaining gap in a wider city-led strategy to protect Lower Manhattan. Other parts of the broader strategy include the Brooklyn Bridge – Montgomery Coastal Resilience, the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency, the Battery Coastal Resilience, and the Battery Park City Coastal Resilience Projects. This is particularly good news if you’re considering buying in Battery Park City.
If you’re looking at NYC apartments for sale, you can rest assured that the city has the best interests of its residents at heart.
The Master Plan will create a 21st-century waterfront for the Financial District and Seaport, which will make Manhattan apartments for sale even more attractive, and not only because the project will offer two levels of flood protection.
The project includes elevated ridges, floodgates, pumphouses, a lower level for daily tidal flooding, an upper level for coastal storms, a raised waterfront esplanade, floodwalls, new piers, and other maritime facilities, ecological interventions, play spaces and gardens, and universally accessible waterfront connections. None of the 1 – 2 story buildings planned for the new development, which will extend into the water up to a full city block at some locations, will be commercial or residential.
NYC – Protected, Safer and More Attractive
The Master Plan ultimately will protect Lower Manhattan, making it safer in terms of climate change and more attractive in terms of the waterfront experience it offers. In our opinion, the plan also makes buying a house for sale in NYC a more attractive option.
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