The City of New York’s climate outcomes can mean climate incomes—and jobs and contracts—for industrial businesses. In this third blog in the series, learn about forthcoming investments from the Departments of Parks & Recreation (DPR), Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), and the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA).
The City’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) manages not only the city’s playgrounds and large parks, but also landscaping in public housing, schoolyards, pools, street medians, and even some forest and wetland across the city. Many of the efforts that DPR will be undertaking to increase resiliency in its assets fall into the following categories:
- Designing capital projects using long-lasting materials and plants that are easy to maintain.
- Conserving and restoring natural areas to protect biodiversity.
- Reducing carbon emissions by making our fleet and buildings more energy efficient.
- Reducing the impacts of climate change by ensuring our parks can withstand flooding and capture stormwater.
- Engaging New Yorkers in the stewardship and care of their parks.
These efforts, of course, will require contractors to provide goods and services such as tree planting, care, and maintenance; forest and wetland restoration; fencing, ironworks, and tree guard production, installation, and maintenance; stormwater capture in partnership with DEP; and much more.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), meanwhile, will require a variety of services for the tens of thousands of units of affordable housing that the agency finances, subcontracts to build, maintains, and oversees. While HPD works with developers to integrate technical upgrades into the facilities that private operators manage, these developers will also require contractors to build and operate broadband, water and energy conservation, solar energy where feasible, waste reduction and management, environmental remediation and landscaping, stormwater management, and more in their facilities. Indeed, HPD-financed and subsidized properties will need to be in compliance with the Climate Mobilization Act as well. HPD’s MWBE Build Up program ensures that at least 25% of project costs go to certified minority and women-owned businesses.
Over at the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA), the public housing assets that had been state of the art in 1939, still largely use 1939 technology today, owing to disinvestment over decades. Now, those assets and technologies must be upgraded both for environmental compliance and the healthy living of the more than 400,000 residents of NYCHA facilities. To this end, NYCHA is pursuing several efforts that require contracting support in technical, logistics, product, and workforce programming needs.
- Heat Pump R&D: If housing developments remove central heating plants, they can use existing window openings for new heat pump retrofits—technologies that transfer thermal energy from air, ground, water, or exhaust to heat or cool an area. NYCHA has worked with the NY State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to pilot and deploy new technologies on housing properties.
- NYSERDA Retrofit: A broad scope of efforts to increase NYCHA properties’ energy efficiency and on-site energy generation will require a variety of contracts: panelized cladding for building insulation; electrification and heat pump installation and maintenance; improved aesthetics for resident comfort; and more to reach 80% reductions of total site energy.
- Energy Performance Contracts: EPC is an innovative financing mechanism that uses cost savings to repay contractors for performance upgrades in boiler replacements, temperature sensors, automated building management systems, LED lighting, water efficiency, and ventilation.
- Community Solar Program: Aiming to produce 25 MW by 2025, provide job training for local NYCHA residents, and reduce energy costs and generate revenue through community roof leases, the CSP has two programs: Commercial Solar for larger roofs, and Access Solar for smaller sections.
- Mattress Recycling Program: With nearly half a million residents, NYCHA facilities can go through a lot of mattresses—in a project pilot, 61 tons of mattresses were collected at just 8 sites in 90 days. The parts of these mattresses can be salvaged and repurposed (see graphic below), providing examples for not just the NYCHA system but for the city. The project seeks contractor services in transport and logistics, hiring, and materials processing at a mattress recycling facility.
Cardboard Baler Program: Similarly, NYCHA facilities, like the rest of the city, expel a lot of cardboard. To manage some of that surplus cardboard, a new Request for Proposals (RFP) seeks an operator to provide on-site baling technology and services, and jobs for residents.
Waste System Redesign: Just as many parts of NYCHA facilities remain unchanged since 1939, waste management systems were largely created to handle waste streams of that era. NYCHA is currently looking for new processing systems, including design-build contracts for pneumatic systems, to facilitate cleaner design and more efficient waste management.
Interested in these or other business opportunities with the City of New York? Learn more about the city contracting process at the MaiiC Policy Resources page and sign up for an account on Protrack.
Interested, but not sure you’re quite ready to take on government contracts? The next blog post in this series will detail some resources that our colleagues at the Department of Small Business Services and NYSERDA have to help businesses ready themselves for city and state contracts.
The content in this blog post is based on presentations by Nave Strauss and Matthew Donham of the Department of Parks and Recreation; Jen Leoni of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development; and Adam Benditsky of the NYC Housing Authority for “NYC SBS’ M/WBE Green Infrastructure & Energy Efficiency Open House” held on April 15th, 2021”
