The New York Rising Community Reconstruction  Program has been established to provide additional rebuilding and revitalization assistance to Communities severely damaged by Hurricanes Sandy and Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. To facilitate community redevelopment planning and the resilience of communities, the State has allocated $25 million for planning in the most affected communities.

Later allocations of funds will be used to support the implementation of projects and activities identified in the plans that the identified communities will produce.

Sustainable Long Island­ is part of a team of consultants providing support to Community Reconstruction communities throughout this process. We will be facilitating community input and public outreach to ensure everyone involved has a voice. Sustainable Long Island is partnering on the project with URS Corporation - a national engineering, design, and construction firm with extensive disaster recovery planning expertise; The LiRo Group - specialists in design and environmental services, head design firm during the redevelopment of the Long Beach Boardwalk; AIM Development - government, housing, and economic experts; and Planning4Places - specializing in community planning that reflects unique community needs and ideals. 

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has said "The New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program empowers communities across the state that have been hit hard by extreme weather over the last few years to come together and build back stronger and smarter."  

"This program pairs a ground-up approach that utilizes local expertise with state-level support, allowing communities to develop their own plans to repair critical infrastructure and strengthen essential services. The end result is one that benefits the whole state's future - communities that are not only rebuilt, but reconstructed to be more resilient and prepared for any future storms."  

Located in 102 communities across the state, New York Rising Community Reconstruction Planning Committees are comprised of community leaders, experts, and officials who incorporate their community's unique needs into their redevelopment strategies. Communities have eight months to prepare and submit their plans. Grant amounts will be based on FEMA assessed damage levels as well as applications for new infrastructure and other mitigation, and will be awarded once the community's plan is complete and submitted to the State for approval. The communities will be eligible to share in more than $500 million of funding made available through the federal supplemental appropriation the Governor worked with Congress to obtain earlier this year.  

The State will also award at least $250 million of the State's FEMA-funded Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) to New York Rising Communities to implement eligible projects contained in their plans. In addition, a $3 million bonus will be awarded for best plans in several categories, including community involvement, use of technology in planning, and best regional collaboration.

(via Newsday) - Long Beach library officials plan to canvass residents about what to do with the West End library, which superstorm Sandy shuttered last year.

The library system's lease for the tiny library, which occupied about 1,000 square feet in a rented building on West Beech Street before Sandy wiped it out, ends in February.

The library system plans to send surveys to West End residents later this year to gauge interest in reopening the branch, which is one of the system's two satellites, said Warren Vegh, a library trustee.

"We have to do the right thing for the community, the right thing for the taxpayer," Vegh said. "The feedback we get, that's how we'll act."

The West End has had a library branch for more than 60 years, a city historian has said. The family that leases the building to the city has repaired the facility since Sandy, but the storm destroyed all materials in the one-floor library.

Surveys will likely go out before the end of the year, Vegh said, adding that the library system wants to wait for more residents to finish rebuilding and return to the neighborhood. Sandy hit the West End hard, and many residents are still out of their homes.

The library system, which has a $3.4 million annual budget, pays the building's owners $1,800 per month for its use. The system is subleasing the property to Project Hope, which pays $250 per month, and Sustainable Long Island*, which is housed for free, said George Trepp, the system director.

*Note: Sustainable Long Island has donated furniture to the library and has been recently utilizing the building to operate a business support center - hosting various classes and workshops to help local small businesses recover post-Sandy.  

"In an attempt to assist the community with services, the library is receptive to any type of community use," Trepp said.

West End resident Diane Parr said she supports the idea of canvassing residents, and believes the library branch should reopen. The rebuilding West End needs more services, she said. "It certainly can't hurt the community," Parr said.

John Bendo, president of the West End Neighbors Civic Association, said the library suffered from declining usage before Sandy. But he thinks it's worth saving. "If there are people that will utilize it, it would be a nice thing to have," Bendo said.

Trustees will have to decide by February on renewing the lease.

As summer comes to an official close later this week, farmers' markets across Long Island are heading into their last few weeks of business. Farmers' markets give community members a greater choice of fresh produce and healthy food options and help boost the local and regional economy. In addition, they  promote nutrition and education to their local residents and contribute to a sense of place.  

It's important to note that many of Long Island's farmers' markets - including all of the ones Sustainable Long Island partners with - accept EBT, WIC and Senior FMNP Checks. A recent analysis from the Brookings Institution points out that suburbanites made up almost 50 percent of food stamp recipients back in 2007 and 55 percent in 2011. 

As you can see, that number is increasing and if you're living on Long Island, which many consider the original suburb, this should not be overlooked.  

With that in mind, make sure you're able to visit your local market before season's end. As always, you can click here for details and a list of dates, times, and locations for Sustainable Long Island's partner markets. Also check out these listings in Nassau and Suffolk for dozens of additional markets across the Island!

(via spur.org) - The word "infrastructure" connotes things like pipes, conduits, steel and concrete, but when it comes to solving urban water management challenges, there are a growing number of solutions that are equally engineered yet more nature-based.

While "grey" or traditional infrastructure remains an essential part of safe and effective design for flood control and urban watershed management, it is no longer the only tool in the toolbox. Green infrastructure systems, by contrast, harness natural processes to infiltrate, recharge, evaporate, harvest and reuse stormwater. They use soils, topography, vegetation and engineered materials to soften the impact of urban development on water resources and ecosystems in cities. And the benefits of such systems extend beyond stormwater treatment and flood control to include carbon sequestration, recreational amenities, habitat creation and beautification.

Earlier this summer, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission held the Urban Watershed Planning Game, a watershed planning charrette, for the North Shore and Channel watersheds. The event introduced members of the public to both green and grey stormwater management technologies and described in depth the characteristics of a few of the city's watersheds. It also exposed participants to the decision-making process of situating, calculating and budgeting for green infrastructure. The Urban Watershed Planning Game categorized stormwater management tools in four ways:

1. Sink it: holds stormwater and slowly infiltrates it into the ground
2. Slow it: holds stormwater flow and slowly releases it to the sewer system
3. Reuse it: holds stormwater and uses it to meet non-potable water demands
4. Move it: directs water flows to a downstream area of storage

Read on for the eight tools that fall into these categories of green and grey stormwater management strategies...