PlaNYC

Jul-10-2012

 IN THIS ISSUE

• NYC Clean Heat Expands With $100 Million in Financing
• NYC Digital and OLTPS Announce Winners of Reinvent Green Hackathon
• Mayor Bloomberg Announces GHG Reduction Potential at Rio+C40
• Williamsburg’s McCarren Pool Reopens After 28 Years
• Water-On-the-Go Launches for Summer
• Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Receives Award from AIA NY

 NYC Clean Heat Expands with $100 Million in Financing

PlaNYC’s goal of reducing soot pollution from buildings by 50 percent by 2013 took a step closer to becoming reality last week.  Achieving this ambitious goal will save 120 lives and prevent 300 asthma-related hospital visits a year.  Mayor Bloomberg announced that the City is partnering with several banks to provide over $100 million in new financing to help building owners convert to cleaner fuels. The City will work through the New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC) and five leading financial institutions—JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Hudson Valley Bank, and the Community Preservation Corporation—to provide the financing.  NYCEEC will use $5 million of City funds to create a loan loss reserve fund that will encourage backstop private sector lending to low and moderate income buildings.

The program is part of the NYC Clean Heat program Mayor Bloomberg launched last year to help buildings meet cleaner fuel requirements. In 2011, the City set new regulations to ban the heaviest heating oils – No. 4 and No. 6 – that are still used in approximately 10,000 buildings and that contribute significantly more soot pollution than all cars and trucks on the City’s roads. The conversions are also expected to generate $300 million in construction activity. In addition to financing, the City is also expanding its partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund to offer technical assistance and outreach to buildings that are undergoing fuel conversions.

To read the press release, click here.

Check out nyc.gov/cleanheat for detailed information on the program and its significance , and how your building can convert to cleaner fuel today

Stay updated on the NYC Clean Heat Tumblr.

NYC Digital and OLTPS Announce Winners of Reinvent Green Hackathon

Over 100 developers collaborated on June 30 and July 1 at NYU-Poly in Downtown Brooklyn for “Reinvent Green,” the City’s first sustainability hackathon. The two-day event, organized jointly by NYC Digital and the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, brought the members from the local tech and sustainability communities together in an effort to produce a variety of digital tools and apps aimed at helping New Yorkers connect with the Mayor’s sustainability objectives in PlaNYC. The applications created offer solutions that address the goals set forth by PlaNYC ranging from transportation issues to raising environmental awareness in neighborhoods. Six winning teams received cash prizes provided by sponsors and in-kind prizes.

The winners of the Reinvent Green hackathon can be viewed here.

In addition, Facebook users can vote on their favorite app by clicking here. Voting ends July 15 and the app with the most votes will be announced later this month.

Mayor Bloomberg Announces GHG Reduction Potential at Rio+C40

All eyes and ears were focused on climate change at the Rio+C40 opening ceremony last month, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that newprojections indicate that C40 Cities have the potential to reduce their annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by more than one billion tons by 2030, or the equivalent of the annual GHG emissions of Mexico and Canada combined. C40 cities are on track to reduce their collective annual emissions by 248 million tons by 2020 by actions they have already started. C40 cities have undertaken nearly 5,000 climate-related actions since the network first formed in 2005. In many cases, these actions were taken without national government support.

C40 is also launching a new solid waste peer-to-peer learning network with support from the World Bank and the Climate and Clean Air Initiative of the U.S. State Department. This network will assist local governments in capturing methane emissions from landfills through solid waste management, and C40’s partners will provide technical assistance to help participating cities develop programs and projects to reduce methane gas fugitive emissions, enable access to financing, and facilitate sharing of expertise.

To learn more about C40, visit their website. 

To read the Mayor’s remarks, click here.

Williamsburg’s McCarren Pool Reopens After 28 Years

Last month marked the beginning of the citywide outdoor pool season and the opening of the newly renovated McCarren Pool & Play Center, the first of eight PlaNYC regional park projects to be completed. Located within the 35-acre McCarren Park, the pool was one of 11 pools opened by Robert Moses in 1936. It closed in 1984 and sat unused until 2005, when the empty pool basin opened as a venue for concerts, dance, and movies. It was designated as a landmark in 2007 and now, for the first time in 28 years, McCarren Pool is now once again a center for recreation for the residents of northern Brooklyn. With McCarren Pool’s reconstruction, all 11 of New York City’s original Works Progress Administration-era pools have now been re-opened.

All 55 outdoor public pools in the City are now open to the public.  They will close on Labor Day– Monday, September 3.  Daily hours of operation are 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., seven days a week. NYC pools are also among the many locations across the City where kids 18 and under can receive free, nutritious meals throughout the summer provided by the USDA through SchoolFood and the New York City Department of Education.

To read the press release, click here.

For more information about public pools, click here.

To learn more about the PlaNYC regional parks projects, download the Parks and Public Space chapter here.

Water-On-the-Go Launches for Summer

Summer has arrived with the launch of the 2012 Water-On-the-Go season. Throughout the summer months, portable drinking fountains providing NYC Water will be available at outdoor locations including public plazas, parks, GrowNYC Greenmarkets, sidewalks, and special events in all five boroughs. This year the number of locations will more than double since last year. Drinking NYC Water makes sense not only because it’s both affordable and healthy; it also helps promote the efforts of PlaNYC to reduce unnecessary waste from packaging. Production of plastic water bottles for use in the United States uses 1.5 million barrels of oil a year—enough to power 250,000 homes or 100,000 cars all year. In order to make finding a Water-On-the-Go location easier, DEP developed a new iPhone/iPad mobile application, which is free and available for download at the iTunes Store. Visitors can also “Check-In” at fountains using Foursquare and will have the opportunity to “unlock” a special for a free reusable NYC Water bottle while supplies last. 

To read the press release, click here.

For a complete list of Water-On-the-Go locations and download the mobile app, visit nyc.gov/dep.

Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Receives Award from AIA NY

The American Institute of Architects New York chapter awarded the George S. Lewis Award to the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability for its work on PlaNYC at their 145th annual meeting on June 13th. The award honors an individual or organization that has helped make New York City a better place in which to live and practice. Director David Bragdon accepted the award on behalf of the office from AIA NY President Joseph J. Aliotta.

For more information about AIA NY, please visit www.aiany.org.