Battery Park City Authority tells court it can’t move forward with Lower Manhattan flood protection work without condo access
The state authority behind a $2 billion Lower Manhattan flood resiliency project says a condo owner’s refusal to let it into their building could derail the coastal flood risk management system it’s working to build along the southern tip of Manhattan.
The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) took Cove Club Condominium to court last week, arguing that if a judge doesn’t grant it access to the condo so it can conduct necessary protection work as it prepares for construction on the northwest portion of its climate resiliency project, it won’t be able to install critical flood walls and underground drainage structures around Battery Park City that could help prevent Hurricane Sandy-esque damage in the future.
“The project is a very significant undertaking and represents a large investment in the future of Lower Manhattan and the region at large,” BPCA’s suit in Manhattan Supreme Court reads. “Yet [BPCA] cannot commence the portion of the project adjacent to the [Cove Club Condominium] because [the condo] has denied [BPCA’s] countless requests to install temporary protections on the premises required by the New York City Department of Buildings.”
The coastal flood barrier system, conceived in the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction, has been in the works since 2015 and will provide critical flood risk reduction for an area that includes 120 buildings, 25,000 residents, 61,000 jobs and critical infrastructure and cultural institutions, like the World Trade Center, BPCA says. Flood risks for the area are expected to increase exponentially over the next 30 years.
A spokesperson for BPCA told amNewYork Law the entity is suing Cove Club Condominium as a last resort. They said BPCA needs temporary access to the building to install vibration monitoring equipment, a generally non-disruptive undertaking, to ensure the safety of those who live in the building and the surrounding area throughout the construction process, which will provide over a mile of lower Manhattan with flood protection when complete.
Requests for comment from Cove Club Condominium and its management company were unavailing. The condo does not yet have attorneys on file in the case.
Some residents and building owners along Manhattan’s edge, where the flood protection work is slated, have expressed resistance to it in the past, citing opposition to the disruption caused by construction.
Neighborhood groups Battery Alliance and Battery City Park Association sued the state authority last November over this northwest portion of the project, arguing construction will harm and disturb the park, trees and nearby property. That suit is still pending.
The state authority has previously prevailed in lawsuits by the same neighborhood groups over the southern portion of its project. The neighborhood groups made similar arguments in 2022 about how the project would disrupt the park, saying BPCA didn’t comply with state environmental review law because it didn’t fully examine alternative designs. Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Sabrina Kraus ruled in BPCA’s favor, saying the public interest of flood protection outweighed delaying the project over resident concerns.
BPCA’s resiliency projects are one of about half a dozen integrated flood protection projects under the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Plan, which also includes climate resiliency work in and near the Financial District, South Street Seaport and the Brooklyn Bridge.
The city and state are undertaking flood-resiliency projects in an effort to keep downtown Manhattan and its residents intact as rainfall and flooding risk increase.
