At this year’s Climate Week NYC, our Product Marketing Specialist Lucía Pistono joined the online session “From Risk to Resilience: Tackling Basement Flooding Through Equity and Reform,” hosted by Waterfront Alliance. The panel brought together experts from the Center for NYC Neighborhoods (CNYCN), Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, and the Pratt Center for Community Development to unpack one of the city’s most urgent challenges: basement flooding, housing equity, and the reforms needed to build a safer, more resilient future.
As climate change drives more frequent extreme rainfall events, New York basements have become ground zero for flood impacts. Many of these spaces, often unregulated apartments, house families who can’t access the formal housing market. A few inches of water can cost homeowners over $25,000 in damage, destroying not only property but also livelihoods.
Beyond material losses, basement flooding poses a life-threatening risk. The victims of Hurricane Ida in 2021 reminded the city that flooding in basements is not a distant or isolated threat, but a systemic failure hitting low-income, immigrant, and communities of color the hardest.
Panelists agreed: basement flooding is a symptom of structural failures in housing policy, zoning, and infrastructure planning. The East New York Basement Conversion Pilot (2019) revealed how complex and prohibitive regulatory barriers make it nearly impossible for homeowners to bring these units into compliance.
From zoning laws to building codes and state-level regulations, obstacles have kept thousands of residents in unsafe housing conditions. Recent legislative reforms have been a step forward, but scaling solutions across all of NYC remains an unfinished task.
The BASE Coalition (Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone) has been at the forefront of the fight to shift policy from prohibition to regulation. Their mission: recognize basement apartments as a critical part of New York’s affordable housing stock, while ensuring safety and dignity for tenants.
Key takeaways from the discussion:
The coalition’s advocacy highlights the intersection of climate resilience, housing justice, and community empowerment, a framework cities everywhere should embrace.
While the session focused on NYC, the lessons are global. Every city is grappling with the dual challenge of climate risk and housing inequity. And every city needs accessible, data-driven tools to assess risk, engage communities, and prioritize actions.
That’s exactly what CityCatalyst offers:
As emphasized during the session, “Resilience can’t wait.” Cities can no longer afford to be reactive. They need to anticipate, plan, and ensure equity is embedded in every decision.
With CityCatalyst, local governments and consultants worldwide can accelerate this journey, turning risks into resilience, and complexity into action.
