New York State voters approved four ballot measures last week, including one that will generate funding for statewide environmental projects and three that intend to improve racial equity by amending parts of New York City’s planning and governing processes.
Passed by a wide margin, the historic Environmental Bond Measure allows the state to borrow $4.2 billion to pay for projects that enable us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, adapt to worsening climate impacts such as flooding, and improve our natural environment and critical resources like clean water.
When it was first announced in 2020, RPA hailed the Act as an innovative new mechanism to pay for large-scale resiliency projects and an echo of our 2017 Fourth Regional Plan, which called for developing statewide funding sources for climate change adaptation, and reintegrating our communities with nature.
New York has some of the most ambitious climate change mitigation goals in the country. The 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires the state to reduce emissions by 85% compared to 1990 levels by 2050. The bond measure provides the means to start achieving these goals.
RPA proudly supported the measure as part of the enormous and diverse Say Yes to Prop 1 coalition. On its website, the coalition breaks down the investment as follows:
$1.5 billion for climate change mitigation, including no less than $500 million to electrify school buses, and $400 million for green building projects;
$1.1 billion to restoration and flood risk reduction, which includes spending no less than $100 million on coastal rehabilitation and shoreline restoration projects, along with addressing inland flooding;
$650 million toward open space land conservation and recreation, with $300 million for open space land conservation and $150 million for farmland protection;
$650 million for water quality improvement and resilient infrastructure, no less than $200 million of which goes toward wastewater infrastructure projects, and $250 million toward municipal stormwater projects.
The act requires that 35% of funds, with a goal of 40%, go toward communities considered disadvantaged with the effects of pollution and climate change. “Historically, a lot of conservation and green space funding has disproportionately gone to areas of the state that maybe are more well off,” Ana Baptista, an associate professor at The New School told the coalition.
The state Comptroller’s Office will now issue bonds to create state debt as early as March 2023. Much of the bond measure’s requirements will be administered by agencies such as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Critically, the state’s investment might open certain projects to matching funds through the federal Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden in August.
