On June 2, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced six winners of the department’s Rebuild By Design competition. The competition is an initiative of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the brainchild of Henk Ovink, a Senior Advisor to Secretary Shaun Donovan and formerly the Acting Director-General of Spatial Planning and Water Affairs for the Netherlands. The purpose of the competition was to develop interdisciplinary ideas “capable of dramatically improving the physical, ecological and economic resilience of coastal areas.” HUD is allocating to the six winners a total of $920 million toward the implementation of the designs. The money comes from HUD’s $2.5 billion Community Development Block Grants-Disaster Recovery funding for the Sandy-impacted region.
Among the six winners is a $230 million comprehensive urban water strategy for Hoboken, N.J. that incorporates coastal defenses, green and urban infrastructure plans to slow and store rainwater, and pumping systems and alternative discharge routes for rainwater. Hoboken is a densely populated area that is vulnerable to flash flooding and storm surge. The other winning proposals address sea level rise in lower Manhattan, flooding and development on Long Island, and protecting communities and ecosystems from storm surge and flooding in the South Bronx, in the Meadowlands and on Staten Island.