Maité Duquela testifies on coastal resilience and Intro 936

Yeah.

Thank you.

Please.

Right.

Good afternoon, Chair Gennaro and Committee Council.

My name is Maite Duquela, and I'm the Climate Policy Fellow at Waterfront Alliance.

We also convene the Rise to Resilience Coalition, which is a coalition of more than 100 organizations advocating for climate resilience citywide and statewide.

And as you highlighted earlier, we're approaching the 14th anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.

And with New Yorkers continuing to experience coastal flooding, we believe the city needs to be looking forward and planning for the next generation of coastal resilience projects proactively, deliberately, and creatively.

And we strongly support building on the capacity of the EP's Bureau of Coastal Resilience to lead this work.

And in that context, we are seeking clarity on Intro 936.

It is currently unclear whether the bill is intended to

codify the existing Bureau or create a separate entity with potential overlapping responsibility.

We just want to clarify that part.

And we believe any legislation should build on the Bureau's existing mandate and capacity rather than creating duplicative structures, as you noted earlier.

We also encourage the committee to hold another oversight hearing on climate resilience next spring when the administration can report back on everything that they're doing, how they're using that funding,

all the hiring that they're planning for, and all the progress on interagency coordination that we're hoping that it progresses.

And we're counting on continued council oversight as that work advances.

And finally, it is not on today's agenda, but we urge the committee to hold a future hearing on 662, sponsored by Councilmember Nantansha Williams on groundwater flood risk.

This is an increasingly important issue for communities across the city, and it deserves consideration by the committee.

Thank you so much.