Blaz $145M plan for the Rockaways
ON THE fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, Mayor de Blasio announced plans to spend $145 million on seven park projects to help protect the Rockaways from future floods.
The city will launch the projects — with federal approval — starting with rebuilding Bayswater Park in Far Rockaway, Queens. The work includes installing a berm along the waterfront, plus building sports fields, play areas and a kayaking spot.
The cash partly comes from $120 million left over from the $480 million the feds earmarked for rebuilding the Boardwalk, which Sandy destroyed. The money can be moved to other neighborhood resiliency projects. The city is kicking in an additional $25 million.
“We cannot solve climate change ourselves,” de Blasio said Sunday at a press conference at a Rockaways YMCA, noting the city will have to work to cut emissions while steeling itself for future storms.
“It will protect the communities behind it,” he said of the park project. “For many years, the Rockaways didn’t get a fair deal. . . . We can right some of the wrongs of the past.”
The other Rockaways projects include a raised shoreline in Edgemere and six recreational facilities along Shore Front Parkway to replace ones Sandy ruined. At Rockaway Community Park, officials plan to raise the shorelines and restore native wetlands as a natural buffer between the park and Jamaica Bay.
A new park at Beach 88th St. will include a sea wall and restored wetlands, and a vacant lot will be turned into Thursby Basin Park, with another sea wall and vegetation designed to protect against tidal flooding.
“The city isn’t going to retreat from the shoreline,” said City Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens). “We’re going to make it Rockaway strong.”
Rebuilding Bayswater Park will take three years to complete, while the rest of the projects will take up to six years, said city Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver.
But the city has fallen behind on other resiliency projects. Flood-protection systems were supposed to be built at five spots in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx by last year, but the projects aren’t complete and several have been scaled back.