Eric Jaffe
Eric Jaffe is the former New York bureau chief for CityLab. He is the author of A Curious Madness and The King's Best Highway.
It's been roughly seven months since Superstorm Sandy ravaged New York City, and plans to protect against the next storm surge are proliferating. In recent days the city has released a 438-page, $20 billion resiliency initiative; a new evacuation map with six threat zones instead of three; and a 33-point action report on preparing buildings for extreme weather events. All three reports contain an enormous amount of detail, especially the latter.
We're talking specifics on the level of using "urethane caulking" instead of "latex caulking" to seal windows, wood screws at a minimum of "#12," and the price of relevant "Tapcon fasteners" (22 cents each). Take that, universe.
The building-focused report comes courtesy of a 200-plus member task force assembled in the wake of the storm. "New York needs resilient buildings that resist damage, protect occupants, and allow residents who must evacuate to quickly return to their homes," the task force writes. In that spirit they offer a series of recommendations tagged with five levels of implementation and sorted by building sector — with separate ideas for commercial structures, multifamily residences, and single-family homes alike.
Most of the 33 proposals offer recommendations for new construction or renovation without demanding changes of existing structures. But five of the ideas were considered so "crucial" that the task force suggests they not only fit into future plans but also be retrofitted into old buildings. They are:
Even urgent recommendations involving building codes can't go into effect without approval from the city council. Given the involvement in the building task force by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker (and mayoral candidate) Christine Quinn, the revisions would seem to have more than a puncher's chance. Last week the New York Times quoted Quinn as saying the council will move "as quickly as possible" on new legislation in response to the report, despite potential objection from real estate owners.
Better building codes would obviously be a great boon to the city's storm preparedness. In some sense, though, the city has already fulfilled the bulk of its civic responsibility by commissioning such a detail report. There's enough information in there for residents and building owners who want to prepare for the next Sandy — legal coercion notwithstanding. Whether these ideas become mandates or remain merely guides, they're out there now for everyone, and that's a sign of good government.