From: REDI Commission (co-chairs) – Basil Seggos & Howard Zemsky

To: REDI Municipalities/Grantees

Cc: Senator Ritchie, Assemblymember Barclay, Assemblymember Manktelow

With the first phase of the Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI)
underway, we are pleased to provide a progress update on this important
community planning process. As you know, in response to the extended pattern
of flooding along the shores of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, REDI was
created to address the immediate and long-term resiliency needs of these areas
while also enhancing economic development opportunities and health of the lake.
The REDI aims to develop a new vision for rebuilding and enhancing the
Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River shoreline from resiliency and
economic development points of view, including protecting critical
infrastructure and enhancing natural features that support coastal resilience.
Since we all gathered in Rochester this June, New York State planning
teams have empowered REDI communities to bring hundreds of project ideas to
the surface, to potentially be funded with up to $300 million. Two planning
meetings have been held in each of the five regions, with at least two more to
come by the end of September. Facilitated by the state’s technical experts,
communities are now examining the resiliency and economic benefit of their
proposed projects, with the end goal of producing the highest quality submissions
to the REDI Commission.
As a point of clarification, local government can propose projects to protect
against economic loss from home value deflation by flood exposure where the
local government has identified a geographic configuration allowing a break wall
or dunes to protect a critical mass of homes. For example, a water barrier will be
ineffective if designed to only protect several homes as the water intrusion from
the surrounding neighbors moot the effect of the barrier. Local governments
would need to submit geographically and physically feasible project designs.
While our focus is on regionally-significant efforts, we have also heard from
a number of homeowners still in need of individual assistance and as a result will
earmark up to $20 million of the $300 million for an expansion of our Department
of Housing and Community Renewal Residential Home Repair Program.
We are estimating awards of approximately up to $15 million total for
qualifying projects per county and additional funding of up to $160 million in total
for regionally significant large-scale economic development and resiliency
projects.
On behalf of the REDI Commission, we are grateful for the tremendous
participation of the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River communities thus far and
are eager to review your submissions. Working together, we are confident that
we can produce projects of great long-term community protection and benefit.
In addition to the REDI efforts, the state has undertaken significant tourism
enhancement activities including I LOVE NY advertising, free fishing licenses on
Lake Ontario and reduced park and camping fees.
Together we will get through this challenge. Thank you for your help.