.st0 { fill: #C4D600; } .style0 { fill: #C4D600; } .style1 { fill: white; } What matters Menu Driving neighbourhood-level action Home » News » Driving neighbourhood-level action Battery Park City is a unique district of New York. The 92-acre planned community is located on the west side of the southern tip of Manhattan – close to the site of the 17th century artillery battery that once defended the approach to the Hudson River. Born of a mid-1960s regeneration project in the former downtown port area, Battery Park City has a long history of environmental leadership, building its status as a model for sustainable mixed-use urban development. Managed by the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), the neighbourhood with its expansive waterfront parks, has always placed a strong emphasis on recreational space and the provision of opportunities for residents to engage with nature, despite living at the heart of the best-known urban landscape in the world. In 2019, the BPCA Board of Directors passed a resolution to develop a 10-year sustainability plan that would build momentum and put Battery Park City on a path towards carbon neutrality by 2050. In addition to internal goals, New York City’s Local Law 97 posed a challenge for buildings in the city to reduce their operational carbon emissions by 2030. These twin challenges created an opportunity for BPCA to pool resources and develop a clear, actionable plan for the next decades of climate action. Buro Happold was selected to lead a team of specialist consultants, to work with BPCA to provide a route map for that journey, via three documents: the Sustainability Plan, the Green Guidelines, and the Sustainability Implementation Plan. The Sustainability Plan set the vision and built out a 10-year plan for sustainability in Battery Park City. The Green Guidelines outline best practice on sustainability interventions, and the Sustainability Implementation Plan details specific steps to achieve sustainability milestones and targets. Image: BPCA Driving Colloboration To complete the suite of sustainability documents, Buro Happold assembled a multidisciplinary team of experts. The team thoroughly assessed BPCA’s assets and identified opportunities for optimising resource-use and environmental benefits. At the heart of the Sustainability Plan is a vision for Battery Park City that illustrates the ambitions for the future and inspires the community to join in sustainability efforts. Driven by this vision, the team conducted a series of public roundtables, pop-ups, and an online survey to collect input from a broad range of local stakeholders. A detailed assessment was also conducted of the existing urban landscape and infrastructure. The final Sustainability Plan identifies strategies, targets, milestones and actions across energy, water, site, materials and waste, with goals of achieving resource management and reduction, innovation and inspiration, and education and collaboration. The resulting suite of sustainability documents provide an holistic framework to encourage collaboration between BPCA, building owners and managers, local businesses, the community, and implementation partners. Image: BPCA One vision Mike Stopka, North America Sustainability Principal at Buro Happold, says the close, multistakeholder collaboration empowered by the plan, will allow Battery Park City to push ahead towards its sustainable future and provide a replicable model for others to follow. Moving on from the production of the three key sustainability documents, our team is now working with the Battery Park City community to continue to identify and execute crucial projects that ensure the vision is achieved. “We need to do a building-by-building assessment of every property in Battery Park City,” Stopka explains. “We’ll be asking what systems they have, how efficient the buildings are, and where the opportunities lay for energy, water and waste savings. We’re also producing a Climate Action Plan – taking the goals set out in the Sustainability Plan and extracting it into a detailed year-by-year timeframe to 2050. This allows us to pinpoint the critical levers to ensure they achieve their goals by that time, such as exploring retrofits and the implementation of new technologies.” Mike Stopka, North America Sustainability Principal at Buro Happold Written by David Clensy Date published 26/10/21 Share .st0 { fill: #C4D600; } .style0 { fill: #C4D600; } .style1 { fill: white; } Let's keep in touch Subscribe to our newsletter Sign me up What we do Projects Specialisms Sectors Quick links Find an office Find a specialist Social media Legal Policies and terms Buro Happold standard Ts&Cs Modern Slavery Policy Cookies Policy Cookies settings © 2021 Buro Happold