The Price of Resilience: Can Multifamily Housing Afford to Adapt?

The report explores the challenges of retrofitting New York City's multifamily housing stock against future climate threats. New York City is largely built out and most structures are multifamily buildings that cannot be retrofitted using existing guidance for single family homes. Even more, the city must find ways to protect its limited stock of affordable housing, and cannot trade units for resilience. This report details design solutions and offers policy recommendations for city officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that may help remove barriers to achieving long-term resilience in this stock. The report provides background about Superstorm Sandy and the vulnerability of NYC’s housing stock; explains the current regulatory requirements for existing building owners; and discusses the results of a design workshop convened by the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy in 2014.

Use this tool to understand regulatory challenges that make it difficult to retrofit multifamily buildings for flood resilience to advocate for new policies. 

The workshop convened experts from various disciplines to identify the most ideal and feasible retrofit strategies for three types of buildings damaged by Superstorm Sandy - attached walk-up buildings, attached building with elevator, and “tower in the park”. The report includes a case study on each building and recognizes constraints to successful implementation, such as rules governing subsidized housing stock and rent stabilization. Examples of strategies considered by the workshop teams include: Relocation of Critical Building Systems; Dry Floodproofing; Wet Floodproofing; and Built Barriers.

The report makes the following recommendations:

  • Preserve affordable housing in the floodplain by modifying FEMA’s flood insurance guidelines for existing multifamily buildings
  • Expand NYC’s Flood  Resilience Zoning Text Amendment to cover buildings in the 500-year floodplain
  • Ensure ready funding for rehabilitation programs and emergency/resilience plans for higher-risk buildings receiving city assistance

 

Publication Date: July 2014

Authors or Affiliated Users:

  • Kevin Findlan
  • Vrunda Vaghela
  • Max Weselcouch
  • Jessica Yager

Related Organizations:

  • NYU Furman Center

Sectors:

Resource Category:

Resource Types:

  • Legal Analysis
  • Policy analysis/recommendations

States Affected:

Impacts:

Go To Resource