Climate Smart Communities Grant Announced for New Rochelle

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities Grant program is awarding more than $11.6 million to 25 municipalities across the state. 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 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.”

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 2022 Climate Smart Communities Grant for the City of New Rochelle is in the amount of $100,000. 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.

The grants are part of New York’s interagency Climate Smart Communities Program to support community engagement in local climate action. There are currently 369 registered Climate Smart Communities, representing more than 9.4 million New Yorkers. To be designated a registered community, municipalities make a commitment to act on climate change by passing a formal resolution that includes a 10-point pledge. More information about the certification program is available at: https://climatesmart.ny.gov/