City Council approves $1.5B project to ‘weather-proof’ Lower Manhattan

There won’t be any cows floating away from downtown Manhattan if Mayor Bill de Blasio signs off on this just-passed plan.

The City Council on Thursday approved a nearly $1.5 billion project aimed at weather-proofing the Lower East Side waterfront to ward off a future Superstorm Sandy, in part by raising East River Park to make it eight feet higher.

The so-called “East Side Coastal Resiliency Plan” is expected to be the first phase of a larger de Blasio-backed initiative to protect Lower Manhattan as a whole through a series of flood walls, flood gates and berms along the shoreline.

Manhattan Council members Carlina Rivera, Margaret Chin and Keith Powers said the project is desperately needed to protect their respective districts from the next Sandy, which devastated the neighborhoods they represent in 2012.

“This is a real critical step in New York’s fight against climate change,” Powers said. “Today’s vote allows us to provide unprecedented efforts to protect our waterfront from climate change.”

The resiliency project will run 2.4-miles from the edge to Montgomery Street northbound to East 25th Street. It will be partially funded by the federal government.

It includes raising the waterfront edge of 46-acre East River Park eight feet higher, and flood walls and gates would also be installed throughout parts of the targeted area to prevent water runoff onto the abutting FDR Drive and nearby residential and commercial corridors.

Construction is expected to begin in March and be completed by 2025. It will be broken into two phases so that parts of the popular park remain open throughout.

The project is not without opposition.

Many local activists have raised concerns, including the anticipated loss of trees and fear of potential health risks for residents during construction since the park was built on a former landfill.

The city’s previous plan to add flood protection to the park called for adding a wall along FDR drive and did not raise the park at all.

About 110,000 residents live in the flood plain on the other side of the FDR Drive from the park.

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