Get Educated: Waterfront Issues
Aquatecture Task Force
Challenges
Waterfront real estate development on all sides of the New York and New Jersey Harbor has accelerated at a record breaking pace. Primarily, the conversion of under-utilized or abandoned industrial land to luxury housing has driven the transition. But other uses, such as parks, retail, commercial and municipal uses such as waste transfer, sewage treatment, and transportation are transforming miles and miles of waterfront. The uses vary, but the dynamics of waterfront development remain complex with stresses created by water, winds and salt spray.
Too often the unique environment that exists waterside is ignored or minimized in the design process. This may result in potentially dangerous urban design - ground level homes being built on a barrier island vulnerable to hurricanes, or else banality - miles of simple esplanades without variety or interaction with the water. We can do better. Design choices made early on can vary the use and texture of waterfront development allowing for places where people can touch the water, places where boats can land, places where kayaks and canoes can be launched, places where people can throw a fishing line in and places where harbor-side retail can flourish.
Also, it is essential that we require every project to take full advantage of the "green" design standards that minimize wastewater and energy usage. Further, we must be on the forefront of the emerging field of "blue" design that seeks not only to minimize our impact on the waterways surrounding us, but also to capture what nature offers along the waterfront . This is "Aquatecture." Our challenge is to create waterfront design for our harbor and waterways that is diverse, green and blue.
Resources
Already around the waterfront there are a number of shining examples of planning and design that embody the tremendous opportunity that the waterfront represents in creating innovative facilities that serve multiple goals:
- Battery Park City developed "Residential Environmental Guidelines" to promote state-of-the-art development of this waterfront neighborhood.
- The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is developing an innovative bulkhead treatment that helps capture stormwater runoff from the adjacent Harlem River Drive.
- The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has adopted a "Renewable Energy Master Plan" to develop ways to maximize sustainable energy production across this 8,000-acre area.
- The City of New York enacted a law in 2007 requiring minimum sustainable design levels for municipal agencies undertaking construction projects.
Possible Recommendations/Starting Points for Discussion
- Designate a portion of the construction budget for major public works to support community-based and environmental planning and design
- Capture all available green-house gases that are also potential energy sources now lost in sewage treatment processing or seeping out of / burned off of waterfront landfills
- Conduct a region-wide solar assessment of waterfront sites and use this information to develop solar energy guidelines for new buildings
- Produce a "sewershed" plan for every sewershed in the region that uses nature (green roofs, porous pavement, etc) to minimize the need for mechanical upgrades to water pollution control plants
- Create pilot projects of piers, bulkheads, relieving platforms and other waterfront and in-water structures serving multiple goals such as sustainable energy or water quality improvements, in addition to their basic physical function
- Create pilot projects using swales and other landscape treatments to capture 100% surface runoff before it enters the waterways
- Produce two neighborhood-scale master plans for waterfront communities that maximize the benefits that waterfront sites offer as well as minimize the usual "footprint" of urban development without compromising the density
Participating Organizations
For a full list of Alliance Members click here.
For a full list of Alliance Members click here.
The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
457 Madison Avenue
New York, NY, 10022
212-935-9831
info [AT] waterfrontalliance [DOT] org