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“This infrastructure is a relic of past planning mistakes: nearly every neighborhood housing these plants is classified as ‘disadvantaged,’ bearing the disproportionate brunt of environmental harm.”
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has rightfully placed climate advocates on high alert. But climate progress didn’t stop altogether during the first Trump term—it just came from elsewhere.
When the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords, New York State and New York City stayed on. In 2019, Albany approved the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, requiring the state to cut emissions 40 percent by 2030. That same year, City Hall passed Local Law 97, pressing buildings—the city’s largest emitters—to go green.
There are already signs that the spectre of a second Trump term is catalyzing the Empire State to act yet again. In recent months, New York advanced the nation’s first-ever “congestion pricing” system to fund public transit and became the second state to fine polluters through a new “climate superfund.” Now, as lawmakers both upstate and downstate gear up for an eventful, if not uncertain year, the question of “what’s next?” looms large.
But thankfully, New York doesn’t have to look far for solutions. There’s one right in our backyard—or rather, along our waterfronts—that could provide us with a generational opportunity to build thriving, biodiverse places for years to come.
Nearly 20 “peaker” plants dot New York City’s waterfronts. On several energy-intensive days each year, like heat waves, the plants turn on, feeding fossil fuel-based electricity into the city’s grid and spewing harmful pollutants into the same air that neighbors breathe. This infrastructure is a relic of past planning mistakes: nearly every neighborhood housing these plants is classified as “disadvantaged,” bearing the disproportionate brunt of environmental harm. Their residents, overwhelmingly, are low-income, Black, Latine, or immigrant populations.
Luckily, change is underway. The state’s “Peaker Rule” is actively pushing energy companies to decommission and retrofit their plants to renewable energy. About two-thirds of total peaker capacity has gone either offline since 2019 or announced plans to switch to cleaner sources. Four will remain open past the 2025 deadline—an implicit admission from state leaders that these facilities, although diminished, will be needed for the “green transition.” But their imminent closures should spark a long overdue dialogue about how this vital real estate can better serve local communities.
As part of the Urban Design Forum’s Rewire initiative, which convened experts of all backgrounds to craft climate solutions for the city, our team proposed a plan to introduce biodiversity to these spaces.
Several key factors drove the development of our proposal. First, our waterfront is where wildlife thrives, evidenced by the return of species like oysters and dolphins; thus, instead of disrupting habitats, the land “peaker” plants currently occupy should serve as a source of their recovery. Second, land remediation is climate justice for communities severed from their own waterfronts for too long. And finally, while “peaker” plants fall on private land and safe public access could be years away, these spaces should offer environmental value to the surrounding areas in the meantime.
Our proposal calls on city and state agencies to work with energy providers, like ConEd and New York Power Authority, to launch a “Plant to Plants” initiative, which would transform polluting energy facilities into new models of waterfront infrastructure. This new effort could utilize universities to provide monitoring and data; identify “ecological priority areas” to guide action; collaborate with community organizations to create green job opportunities; and empower local groups to stewardship. A demonstration site at an existing “peaker” plant could test these concepts in real-time.
We’ve seen firsthand what’s possible. Our research took us to Brooklyn, where the Gowanus Canal Conservancy is helping to slowly revive the polluted waterway there through “nature-based solutions,” and the South Bronx, where local residents can forage herbs and vegetables on public land for the first time at the Bronx River Foodway, on the site of a former concrete plant. We also heard from a Bay Area-based nonprofit that experiments with different approaches to habitat remediation and climate resiliency using small parcels of land. Their name says it all: Test Plot.
The time is now to act. Our plan aims to be a springboard for meaningful conversations between advocates, community-based organizations, private companies and local leaders about the future of these vital spaces. Because New York cannot rely on Washington these next four years to deliver the climate solutions the region needs right now, as it faces record rainfalls, droughts, wildfires, and other calamities. Like after 2016, city and state leaders must chart their own path forward to provide the livable, healthy environments that disadvantaged communities have long called for and deserve. Let’s start along the water.
John Surico is a journalist & researcher at Center for an Urban Future. Kevin Kim is a designer at Nelson Byrd Woltz. Hannah Berkin-Harper is the design lead at Street Lab. All three authors are Urban Design Forum Fellows, working on the Rewire Initiative to envision how New York can foster biodiversity and nature-inclusive spaces in our streets, plazas, parks, and commercial corridors.
