LI developers spending millionsto ‘Sandy-proof’ projects

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AvalonBay is raising land at itscomplex in Great Neck, right.Builders’ investments comeamid reports of rising sea levels.

MAURAMCDERMOTTBYmaura.mcdermott@newsday.com

Long Island developers aremaking multimillion-dollar in-vestments to protect newprojects — waterfront and in-land alike— from rising sea lev-els and the risk of majorstorms.

InGlenCove, RXRRealty saidit is raising the ground level of its56-acre waterfront development,Garvies Point, by 6 to 10 feet.The effort required enough soil,sand and gravel to fill 40Olympic-sized swimming pools.It also is constructing $15 millionsteel and reinforced concretebulkheads along the waterfront,and spending roughly $10 mil-lion on storm-water manage-ment and $5 million on genera-tors to provide full power to all569 condominiums if electricitygets knocked out.

These and other steps tomakethe property storm-resilient willadd roughly $40million to the $1billion cost of the project, whichin addition to the condos in-cludes 541 rental apartments aswell as a restaurant, shops, of-fices and parks, the Uniondale-based developer said.

In East Rockaway, the Beech-wood Organization is elevating84 new condos over parkingspaces at its waterfront prop-erty, adding a new bulkhead,docks and oversized drainagesystems, and placing all me-chanical equipment on roofs.The 2.7-acre site was previ-ously occupied by a marinathat was devastated by super-storm Sandy in 2012. Jericho-based Beechwood said it spentroughly $5 million going be-

yond state building codes andlocal requirements to protectthe property from storms.

Virginia-based AvalonBayCommunities is raising theland near Manhasset Bay inGreat Neck where it is con-structing a 191-unit apartment

building, elevating the struc-ture over parking and installingutilities 16 feet high, at the toplevel of its garage, said ChrisCapece, senior development di-rector.

Tritec Real Estate Co. is ele-vating the 112 apartments in its

Shipyard project in Port Jeffer-son over a parking garage andinstalling drainage pumps inthe garage, even though the wa-terfront complex is located out-side the designated flood plain,said Robert Kent, vice presi-dent and general counsel at theEast Setauket-based company.

“In a post-superstorm SandyLong Island, there is a height-ened awareness of where thehigh-risk flood zones are,” saidKyle Strober, executive directorof the Association for a BetterLong Island, a builders’ tradegroup. “The 100-year floodstorms are happening every 10years now, and that means onlythe very forgetful or the high-stakes gamblers are building onthe ground level today.”

Exceeding requirementsUnder state building codes

and local laws, developers arerequired to protect buildings inhigh-risk flood zones by con-

structing strong foundations, el-evating buildings and electricalsystems and using storm-resis-tant materials, among othermeasures. But developers saythey are going beyond those re-quirements.

The builders’ investmentscome as climate scientists re-port that sea levels have risenover the last century and are ex-pected to continue rising. Astudy released last month bythe Union of Concerned Scien-tists examined the U.S. coast-line and found that by 2100nearly 500 communities — in-cluding many along Long Is-land’s South Shore — couldface “chronic flooding” so se-vere that residents could be dis-placed if communities do nottake steps to protect them-selves.

Global sea levels have risenby 7 to 8 inches since 1900, ateam of scientists wrote in a673-page draft government re-

Developers are building new projectswith protections against flooding

STAYINGABOVEWATER

Frank Haftel, far left, and JoeGraziose, both of RXR, which israising the ground level of itsGarvies Point project.

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port dated June 28, The NewYork Times reported recently.Sea levels are “very likely” torise another 3 to 6 inches by2030, due mainly to increasingtemperatures and melting ice,and the effects could includemore floods and majorstorms, the draft report found.

Some scientists and electedofficials debate the extent,severity and causes of thechanges.

But on Long Island, major de-velopers and small-scalebuilders say they are respond-ing to a growing incidence ofroutine floods, as well as majorstorms like Sandy.

In RXR’s Glen Cove com-plex, all residences will be lo-cated 18 to 22 feet above thelevel reached by a so-called100-year storm — that is, astorm with a 1 percent chanceof happening in a given year,the developer said. Even atRXR’s Ritz-Carlton develop-

ment in North Hills — morethan 2 miles from ManhassetBay — the developer is gird-ing for storms. Two tractor-trailer-sized generators canprovide full power to the first110 condominiums, and an-other three will be added asthe complex grows to 230units. The generators are ex-pected to cost $3.5 million,said Joe Graziose, senior vicepresident at RXR.

Protecting investmentsRXR chief executive Scott

Rechler was determined tomake the Ritz-Carlton “Sandy-proof,” despite the added cost,since many buyers lived onthe North Shore and lostpower when Sandy hit,Graziose said.

Developers say their primaryconcern is protecting their owninvestments and those ofprospective buyers.

“The last person you’re going

to talk about being a tree-hug-ger is me,” Graziose said. “Thisis all about infrastructure. Atthe end of the day, you want tobuild something that’s going tolast a long time.”

In East Rockaway, Beech-wood said all residences will bealmost 13 feet above the high-water mark from Sandy.

“The key is just to buildhigher,” said Steven Dubb, aprincipal with the companyand son of its founder, MichaelDubb. “We want to make surewe can survive superstormSandy, or worse.”

In downtown Riverhead, theCommunity DevelopmentCorp. of Long Island andConifer Realty are building 45apartments that will be on thesecond floor or higher to pro-tect them from floods, saidGwen O’Shea, chief executiveof the Centereach developmentcorporation. The electrical sys-tems will be at least 2 feet

above the height of a 100-yearstorm.

The same developers alsoare building 90 apartments inCopiague. At both complexes,builders are using materials de-signed to protect against floodsandmajor storms, such as hurri-cane-resistant windows. Bothcomplexes will rent to resi-dents with low to moderate in-comes.

“We have such a limited num-ber of affordable housing op-tions on Long Island that as werehabilitate or develop newproperties, doing so in a waythat is resilient allows the in-vestment to be that much moresustainable and long-term,”O’Shea said.

The Governor’s Office ofStorm Recovery contributed$4.55 million to the cost of theRiverhead project and $8.75million for the apartments inCopiague. Those awards werepart of a $79.2 million pro-

gram to replace affordablehousing throughout the statein areas hit by Sandy andother storms, an agencyspokeswoman said.

Protecting new residencesfrom storms “makes good eco-nomic and business sense andthoughtful social policy,” LisaBova-Hiatt, executive directorof the recovery office, said in astatement.

In Long Beach, new single-family homes also include pro-tection from floods.

Added cost, added valueMaking homes storm-re-

silient by building strong foun-dations, elevating living spa-ces over garages, and in somecases installing elevators, caneasily cost an extra $100,000for a single-family home, saidAnthony Rector, a builder andlifelong Long Beach resident

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who has constructed six newhomes there since Sandy. How-ever, such measures can addroughly $250,000 to the valueof a property, he said. Protect-ing homes from storms also re-duces flood insurance costs.

Rector said he elevated hisown bayfront home over agarage after Sandy flooded itwith 5 feet of water. “My livingspace is never going to be hitagain, unless of course there’ssomething out there that wecan’t foresee or control,” hesaid. “I love living on the water,and this is just part of the proto-col.”

The recent report by theUnion of Concerned Scien-tists predicts that even underan optimistic scenario for ris-ing sea levels, more than 10percent of Long Beach couldface routine floods — twice amonth, on average — by theend of the century. If theocean rises sharply, Long Is-land coastal communities

from the Town of Hempsteadto East Hampton would faceroutine inundation of one-tenth or more of their land,the group predicts.

Local climate scientists saidlarge-scale studies, such as theone by the Union of ConcernedScientists, cannot account forcharacteristics of individualcommunities, such as flood-mit-igation measures.

Nevertheless, those local ex-perts said the recent study isbased on solid scientific analy-sis. More detailed local datashow that communities such asLong Beach and the Town ofHempstead “definitely have tobe concerned about rising sealevels over the next 20 to 40years,” said Larry Swanson, in-terim dean of the School of Ma-rine and Atmospheric Sciencesat Stony Brook University.

Sea levels continue to riseResearch by the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration shows that onLong Island, sea levels have

risen by 0.8 to 1.3 feet overthe last century, said NelsonVaz, coastal services teamleader for the NationalWeather Service.

A team of 300 experts guidedby a 60-member federal advi-sory committee has concludedthat a further rise of 1 to 4 feetin global sea levels is expectedby 2100, but the increase inNew York could be evengreater, Vaz said.

The gradual rise in sea lev-els will lead to more damag-ing storms, since floodwaterswill reach farther inland, saidJay Tanski, a coastal geologistwith the New York Sea Grantprogram. And that will forcemore Long Island communi-ties to adapt by elevatingroads and buildings above thereach of floodwaters, asFreeport and other municipali-ties have already begun to do,he said.

On Long Island, developersand public officials alike saidthe Island already faces morefrequent flooding and more

needs to be done to protectresidents.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley)said he has worked with localgovernments seeking federalgrants for storm mitigation andadvocated for coastal and wet-lands restoration projects that“will use the natural environ-ment to reduce flooding, ero-sion and storm damage.”

In Long Beach, local offi-cials have secured more than$200 million in state and fed-eral funding to protect thecity from flooding, said CityManager Jack Schnirman, aDemocrat. City residents “arejustifiably afraid,” Schnirmansaid.

Many builders say they aretaking action to allay thosefears.

“I’m not going to speak toglobal warming and things ofthat nature,” Graziose said.“[But] we’ve seen more stormsin the last 25 years than we didwhen we were kids, so as abuilder we’ve got to addressthem head on.”

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Conifer Realty’s Copiague Commons, where builders are using materials designed to protect against flooding and major storms.

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