Advancing Equitable Partnerships: Frontline Community Visions for Coastal Resiliency Knowledge Co-Production, Social Cohesion, and Environmental Justice

Paul Gallay, Resilient Coastal Communities Project

Decarbonization, Climate Resilience & Climate Justice Conference

Columbia Climate School, March 31, 2023

Introduction:

The Resilient Coastal Communities Project (RCCP)

• Partnership between Columbia Climate School and NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYCEJA)

• Addresses the challenges of coastal resilience through:
• Iterative engaged research
• Support for community empowerment in public planning
• Publications, workshops & other convenings

• Advances Columbia’s Fourth Purpose by bringing our research to bear on critical issues in real time

The Wicked Problem of Climate-Induced Coastal Flooding

We Face Several Major Threats…

Flood protection measures must address three distinct problems:

○ ocean waters blown into our communities by high winds, like what happened during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

○ intense rainstorms that overwhelm our storm sewer system - like Hurricanes Ida and Henri in 2021, and

○ sea levels that have risen 8 inches already and will rise by another foot or more by 2050.

… And, Must Achieve Multiple Competing Goals

At the same time, flood protection planning must address widely varying and potentially competing goals, including:

○ Protecting Public Health and Safety

○ Safeguarding Natural Systems and Biodiversity

○ Preserving Access to Waterfronts

○ Protecting Community Character and Property, and

○ Adressing Past Inequality and Building Social Cohesion

RCCP Research in 2022:

• We asked 10 environmental and climate justice organizations in NY/NJ: what’s working and what isn’t, when it comes to coastal resilience planning?*

* El Puente, GOLES, Guardians of Flushing Bay, Ironbound Community Corporation, Newtown Creek Alliance, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, RISE, Staten Island Urban Center, The Point CDC, UPROSE.

Sandy + 10: Resilience, Equity and Climate Justice

“Building Partnerships for Inclusive Climate Resiliency”

• We followed up with interviewees (twice) to ensure accountability, trust & accuracy
• Our findings have been shared through working papers, journal submissions, agency dialogues, conferences, etc

COMMUNITY EXPERTISE IS ESSENTIAL (BUT MARGINALIZED)

1. Communities have knowledge agencies lack

2. Many community-based groups already have sophisticated resilience-related plans

2022 RESEARCH FINDINGS:

3. Most communities have little access to or trust in agency leaders

4. Communities are frustrated at being sidelined in planning (yet remain eager to collaborate)

SOUTH BRONX UNITE, REGIONAL PLAN ASSOCIATION, UPROSE

NY/NJ COMMUNITIES UNDERSTAND HOW SYSTEMIC

INEQUITY UNDERMINES THEIR SAFETY AND SECURITY

• How flood risks compound with other risks - heat, food, rental insecurity, etc.
• How coastal flooding intersects with runoff, rainfall, storms, pollutants, etc.
• How the impacts of locating polluting industries on their fencelines, the lack of green areas, redlining, and unsound planning and development patterns live on in their communities.

2022 FINDINGS (continued):

“We lost a wetland to development even after that wetland saved homes from the ravages of Hurricane Sandy. After all these recent hurricanes and... storm surges... we still completely lost a major wetland... 1800 trees are gone... People who live in mobile homes and hundreds of other homes were spared because of those 1800 trees, because of that wetland and still, that wetland is being destroyed to build a store.” (Staten Island Urban Center).

“For years, we've been saying, why don't you put a valve [on the stormwater drain to prevent stormwater coming up through the drain]? They said, because then it would flood other areas of the city. And that to me says that the city feels it is ok to flood low-income communities like ours, surrounded by a high density of public housing. We are not a priority in the city's eyes.” (Name withheld).

“We'd gone through about six to eight months of community engagement, working in good faith with the city… and then for a couple of months, the city then were deliberating on their own and then came back with a final design that did not look like what was co-created with community… there was a feeling of… bad faith co-collaborative efforts with the city and in community engagement process… and people felt like their time was wasted.” (GOLES).

2022 FINDINGS (continued):

CLIMATE JUSTICE WILL REQUIRE A FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT IN POWER DYNAMICS

1. Collaborative planning yields better outcomes by coupling government expertise with community wisdom
2. Without frontline community involvement, plans favor privileged groups and deepen historic inequalities
3. Despite all the knowledge, skill and commitment that communities can bring to the table, their participation in resilience planning is almost never valued or funded

An UPROSE climate justice march in September 2021. UPROSE is a member of NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.

“We need money to lead processes, and not money that comes attached with a plan already… we need support from experts who have the principles and values that we have… They need to train trainers in our community. They need to not helicopter into our community… I want to see them put their money where their mouth is… don't just get $100,000 to do a research project that we get $5,000 out of, and then you leave.” (The Point CDC).

“They create an advisory group, but the agenda has already been created… This table has been set and then we're being brought to the table to eat food that is being force fed to us… I was upset, because the way that it had been set up was very top-down. They had determined the priorities for us.” (UPROSE).

ADDRESS BARRIERS TO COLLABORATIVE PLANNING

• Stop rushing public engagement in resilience planning
• Provide financial support for effective community engagement
• Assign agency staff support for dialogue, accountability and empowerment
• Transform one-off “public comment periods” into ongoing collaborative planning exercises
• Make sure communities “are at the center” of all planning processes.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

BUILD SOCIAL COHESION, NOT JUST RESILIENCE

RECOMMENDATION:

• Recognize the intersection between racial, economic and environmental justice issues and flood protection goals
• Deal with those intersecting threats to social cohesion as part of plans to address flooding & other climate risks

Hierarchies of Engagement and Empowerment (Low to High)

• Government provides notice, takes public comments (local awareness without real power)
• Government provides responses to public comments (beginnings of dialogue)
• Gov’t brings community into decisionmaking process (meaningful consultation)
• Gov’t shares leadership on project design with community (true partnership)

​

Models for Collaborative and Just Resilience Planning

Next Steps: Center Communities in Resilience Planning

• Build awareness: identify and reach out to at-risk, marginalized or disempowered neighborhoods and organizations, which are essential partners when seeking just and equitable planning outcomes. 
• Build capacity: provide guidance as to how at-risk communities can access the resources needed to participate effectively in EJ/CJ-related planning. 
• Build the table: support the creation of formal structures, such as community advisory committees, project design charrettes and formal liaison programs between agency staff and local stakeholders, to assure that communities will have meaningful input into EJ/CJ-related planning.

• Build project ownership at the local level: support communities seeking to participate effectively in EJ/CJ-related planning by helping to ensure that they are fully vested partners, through greater transparency, funding for technical support and full access to decision makers.
• Build shared support at the regional and national level: share successes and challenges, from community to community, to facilitate the exchange of ideas and techniques for managing risks and creating resilience. 

“We need community members in those conversations… if we're not moving at the speed that our people need us to move in, then all the policy in the world, without that community power… we're gonna hit a wall.” (The Point CDC).

• Is there a strong legal framework requiring collaboration?
• Is there agency cooperation?
• Is there funding for effective community participation?
• Have agreed-upon goals been established?
• Is enough time being made available to plan collaboratively?
• Are provisions in place for continuing engagement after plans are made and resilience measures are being built?

Necessary Conditions for Just, Effective Resilience Planning

A Vision for Centering

Justice In Resilience Planning

• Essential information is accessible to all
• Sustained funding is provided to support all stakeholders
• Effective stakeholder networks and partnerships are created and maintained, to empower and elevate frontline communities
• Productive and supportive spaces are fostered to promote the listening, learning, accountability and trust needed for effective collaborative planning
• Frontline Communities see themselves in each completed resilience plan and support its funding and implementation

“The deeper context and source of what we might call resiliency is our being able to imagine a future that we ourselves are not just existing but we thrive in, and that we ourselves are active leaders in really creating, and recreating, and continuing to develop.

This worldview to create this new reality, this new world predicated and based on principles and values that we all share with regard to respect and integrity, love and compassion… that really comes from a deep commitment to love and to compassion.” (El Puente)

Advancing Equitable Partnerships: Frontline Community Visions for Coastal Resiliency Knowledge Co-Production, Social Cohesion, and Environmental Justice

Researchers

Aya Morris (Equal First Author)

Bernadette Baird-Zars (Equal First Author)

Victoria Sanders

Jacqueline M. Klopp

Annel Hernandez

Lexi Scanlon

Hannah Su-An Lin

Paul Gallay - pag57@columbia.edu

Financial support for the conduct of this research was provided by Columbia Climate School, the Dextra Baldwin McGonagle Foundation, the Donald C. Brace Foundation, the LE4 Foundation, Susan Luciano and Sanjya Tidke.