How NYC Plans to Create a ‘Living Laboratory’ for Climate Research
The mayor is seeking applicants to create a test bed for urban climate solutions on the sparsely developed Governors Island.
Last September, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that Governors Island would become a hub dedicated to preparing New York — and the world’s cities — for the impacts of climate change.
Now, to help achieve that goal, de Blasio and the Trust for Governors Island have launched a global competition to find a research or academic institution to establish a Climate Solutions Center on the island just south of Lower Manhattan. The aim is to turn the 172-acre Governors Island into a “living laboratory” for climate research, with a focus on environmental justice and community resiliency.
The competition was announced alongside a $150 million investment in the island’s transportation, utility and building infrastructure. That’s on top of the $400 million the city has spent over the last decade to turn the former military base into an urban retreat for New Yorkers, with an expansive park, and water and electricity upgrades. The new funds will also support the broader redevelopment project, which is expected to generate 7,000 jobs on the island.
The hope for the new solutions center is to broaden the study of climate change, and incorporate the work of policy and advocacy experts to pilot solutions that will have a direct impact on New York communities, particularly low-income neighborhoods that bear the brunt of extreme weather events like hurricanes, flooding and the urban heat island effect.
That includes finding new models of disaster preparedness and recovery. Traditional models often fail to address the complexities of cities like New York, said Vicki Been, the city’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development. “One of the things that we certainly learned during [Hurricane] Sandy is that many of the kind of responses of the federal government, and the way that money was structured to flow in to help neighborhoods, was very much based upon a model that isn't a dense urban environment,” she said, “and didn't take into account the differences in housing type, and the fact that most people in New York City are renters, not homeowners.”
relates to How NYC Plans to Create a ‘Living Laboratory’ for Climate Research
A map of plans for the new Climate Solutions Center
Source: Trust for Governors Island
As part of the city’s vision, Governors Island, which already attracts roughly a million visitors each year, will bring residents directly into the conversation — fostering a “human element” of climate research, according to Michael Oppenheimer, director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and Environment at Princeton University. In contrast to theoretical research, “you actually can sit in an urban area and watch as people respond to the changing world and potentially participate in development of these solutions to these problems,” said Oppenheimer, who was an early advisor to the project. Eventually those solutions could be available to cities across the globe, per the city’s proposal.
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The city asked potential candidates to lay out, by September, how they would design various programs to expand and promote green jobs, and how they would engage the public in the research. It’s asking respondents to focus on issues including adaptation in dense urban environments, climate justice, public education and public health, said Clare Newman, president and chief executive officer of the Trust for Governors Island.
Climate adaptation is crucial, she added, but lagging in both research and investment. “Even if carbon emissions drop to zero tomorrow, we're all going to grappling with the impacts of climate change, and communities need to be ready,” she said.
The announcement comes nearly two decades after the federal government transferred control of Governors Island — which became a ghost town after the Coast Guard left in 1996 — to New York State in 2003. When the city took over in 2010, it put the Governors Island trust in charge of bringing the island back as a public space. The opening of a 40-acre public park in 2016 has turned it into an urban oasis for New Yorkers, with public arts and cultural programming provided by the nonprofits and the local high school that have occupied the island’s buildings. The trust’s master plan, released in 2010, designates two waterfront sites on either side of the park for future development to help generate revenue. Politicians and developers alike have proposed building a water park, a casino or even a prison, none of which have come to fruition.
In May, the city council voted to rezone the south end of the island, allowing for nearly 4 million square feet of new development across 34 acres of university space, offices, hotels and retail. The decision drew some concerns from city residents that new buildings would disrupt public access to the island, though the final proposal passed preserves all 46 acres of public space, which is protected under a federal deed restriction.
The climate-research project is not only expected to bring even more people to the island, but will also serve as “a public showcase point,” said Newman. “A place where you show people what the next generation of solutions look like."