ALBANY, NY (December 30, 2022) — The City of New Rochelle will receive $100,000 under the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities Grant program which has awarded more than $11.6 million to 25 municipalities across the state.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities Grant Funding helps municipalities afford projects that will often save taxpayer dollars over the long term while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping communities adapt to the ongoing impacts of climate change, including reducing flood risk, relocating or retrofitting critical infrastructure, and increasing community resilience to extreme weather.
The New Rochelle grant is for Evaluation of Policies for Climate Resilience.
New Rochelle’s Climate Resilience Policy Evaluation will guide resilient procedures and policymaking with three focused components: (1) Metrics for environmental, social and governance issues and an annual reporting framework; (2) Heat emergency plan policy evaluation; (3) A coastal resilience policy evaluation.
What they are saying:
“The significant funding under New York’s Climate Smart Communities Program is critical in supporting local efforts to protect residents and infrastructure from the effects of climate change,” Governor Hochul said. “We continue to see increasingly extreme weather each year and these grants help empower locally-driven, bold action to help meet New York’s ambitious climate goals while setting an example for other municipalities to follow.”
Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Seggos said, “These Climate Smart Communities recognized today are powerful examples of what municipalities and local leaders can do to reduce pollution and protect residents from severe weather and the consequences of our changing climate. Governor Hochul recognizes the severity of the climate challenges before us and these substantial grants support New York State’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping all cities, towns, and villages, especially environmental justice communities, become stronger and more resilient.”
Established in 2016, the Climate Smart Communities Grant Program is a competitive 50/50 matching grant program for municipalities to implement projects focused on climate change adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Project types also include certain planning and assessment projects that are part of a strategy to achieve Climate Smart Communities certification. Of the total grant funds awarded this round under the implementation and certification categories respectively, 36 percent was awarded to implementation projects located in disadvantaged communities that face a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution, and 66 percent was awarded to certification projects by municipalities that contain a disadvantaged community, as identified by the Climate Justice Working Group’s draft criteria.
The program also supports the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires New York to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. Since the Climate Smart Communities Grant Program’s inception, DEC has awarded more than $50 million to municipalities in support of local climate mitigation and adaptation projects. More information about this grant program is available on the DEC website.
The Consolidated Funding Application was created to streamline and expedite the grant application process. The CFA process marks a fundamental shift in the way state resources are allocated, ensuring less bureaucracy and greater efficiency to fulfill local economic development needs. The CFA serves as the single-entry point for access to economic development funding, ensuring applicants no longer have to slowly navigate multiple agencies and sources without any mechanism for coordination. Now, economic development projects use the CFA as a support mechanism to access multiple state funding sources through one application, making the process quicker, easier, and more productive.