Rising Sea Levels and Their Effects on Housing and Relief in Queens

Maureen B. Nelson

Department of English, City College of New York

ENGL 21003: Writing for the Sciences

Professor Caitlin Geoghan

May 16, 2022

SUMMARY

The sea levels are rising in NYC, especially in the Rockaway/Broad Channel and the South Queens Region. This is caused by the current global warming crisis and climate changes. This area is experiencing higher levels of rain, rising flood levels, more severe hurricanes, the aftereffects of glaciers melting, and the rising temperature of the Earth.

Due to the rising sea levels in the Rockaway/Broad Channel due to climate changes, there has been a decrease in houses bought in the area. Because there is more flooding due to global warming, the prices of houses have increased. As a result, the move in rate in the Rockaway/Broad Channel has decreased. To ameliorate the constantly increasing issue of decreased home buying in the area and other areas in NYC, the government should focus its resources to have more protective barriers and relief plans. As well as having a prevention focus agenda because of how the current global warming crisis affecting people.

PURPOSE

It is important to bring light to these issues because they are not touch on enough. This report seeks to explain the impact of how the rising sea levels affect local NYC communities. Using housing data in the Rockaway/Broad Channel area, a decrease-increase relationship is seen in housing sales and moves on a scale of hurricanes and flooding.

BACKGROUND

Figure  1: Map of Rockaway Peninsula (Best Neighborhood in Far Rockaway, NY)

The Rockaway/Broad Channel is a community located in the coastline of southern Queens. The community is along the coastline surrounded by water on all three sides also known as the Rockaway Penisula (Queens: The Brand, n.d.). Hurricanes are a frequent climate changes experience by this community. The population is majority Black at 37.4%, White at 32 %, and  Hispanic at 26% (Furman Center, n.d.). It originally had a population of predominantly Eastern Europeans, but in the recent years there has been a growing number of Hispanic and Caribbean populations in this neighborhood (Queens: The Brand, n.d.).

This area has grown accustomed to periodic flooding and hurricane damage (Crain’s New York, 2007). This area is very close to the beach and is surrounded by water as seen in Figure 1 above. Residents of Rockaway had experienced strong Nor’Easter in Decemeber of 1992 which caused flooding and severe property damage residents (Crain’s New York, 2007).  As the years went on flooding doubled (Crain’s New York, 2007). Though this area was well accustomed to hurricanes, the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy devasted the community (Crain’s New York, 2007). In a low lying neighborhood such as Rockaway, the risk of large scale flooding is the biggest concern.

DISCUSSION

New York city’s southeast neighborhoods are being affected by the rising sea levels due to global warming. As time progresses more flooding is reported. Water overflow is associated with rainfall, snowfall, northeastern climate, and geographic location.

Global warming has the highest impact on the rising sea levels. Over time the earth has gone warmer and ice sheets, glaciers, and other natural resources have led to a rapidly

melting environment (National Geographic, 2013). Each year climate scientists have estimated that areas in Greenland and Antarctica have lost roughly 200 billion metric tons of ice annually  (National Geographic, 2013). In the next 100 years, scientists believe that the syllable could reach over three feet higher than it already is (National Geographic, 2013).

After Hurricane Sandy, housing sales in Queens and Brooklyn decreased (Ortega et. al, 2018). Many of the shoreline neighborhoods are affected by flooding attributed to the rising sea levels in NYC (Hartig et. al., 2001). Four out of the five New York boroughs are located on coastal islands and have sea-level elevation around 3 meters (Hartig et. al., 2001).

The flooding reported has also been associated with the average rainfall of 47 inches and the average snowfall of 25 inches a year in New York City (Cruz, 2020). Many neighborhoods are susceptible to coastal and high tide flooding. Especially in the occurrence of a hurricane, like Hurricane Sandy, communities and neighborhoods like Rockaway channel or Jamaica Bay are at risk (Cruz, 2020).

Preventative measures to protect the communities in New York City that are vulnerable need to be taken. Due to its lack of levees and storm barriers, low-lying coastal areas in New York City experience increased flood damage (National Geographic, 2013). Other major cities like Shanghai, New Orleans, and London have put these measures in place That have proved to be effective (National Geographic, 2013).

Storm surges are also all even cause of the coastal flooding affecting areas like Rockaway Beach in Queens NY. Flood levels have risen to three to three and a half meters and are projected to increase (Hartig et. al., 2001).In these densely populated areas in Rockaway, the average housing value it’s much higher turn the average household income. In the densest areas with a population size ranging from 40,000 to 60,000, the average household income is $40,000 to $50,000. However, the average housing value in these areas ranges between $250,000 to $300,000 (Hartig et. al., 2001).

The latest research was done by Furman center, 36.6% of the population in Rockaway slash broad channel in Queens NY have homeownership. Housing units are available up to 44,696. Rental vacancies 3.2% (Furman Center). 107 one-family building homes were sold at a median price of $612,000. 144 two to four-family buildings homes were sold at $334,750 (Furman Center). Prices and housing types can be seen in Figure 2 that illustrates the fluctuations in sales of the common housing types in Rockaway.

The sales of these homes are decreasing, the value of them is increasing. It is unclear if the reason why sales are decreasing is due to the lack of new families moving into Rockaway, or an increase in families leaving Rockaway (Cruz, 2020). This can be due to the flooding and lack of flood protection provided by community leaders and local government (Cruz, 2020).

Figure 2: Median House Sale Prices in Bronx (BX), Brooklyn (BK), Queens (QN), Staten Island (SI), and Manhattan (MN). Queens during the years 2011-2013 decreases in sales of different house types and their purchases. Source (Ortega, Tasipnar 2018)

Thus far New York City has spent $19 billion to build levees and stone barriers to reduce the vulnerability that these areas have against storms like Hurricane Sandy (National Geographic, 2013). Malcolm Bowman, a physical oceanographer at SUNY Stony Brook,  states that such barriers stretching along the southern coast including areas like the Rockaway peninsula have a high cost (National Geographic, 2013). He acknowledges that it is important, however, could have been avoided if the state had thought of preventative measures ahead of time (National Geographic, 2013). He has suggested and called for the installments of harbor-spanning storm-surge barriers that would reduce NYC’s vulnerability to flood damage during hurricanes. (National Geographic, 2013).

And immediate plans to be put in place to secure and safeguard these areas. In June of 2013, the mayor of New York City outlined his plan to construct levees, storm surge barriers, sand dunes, oysters, and other preventive measures for the rising sea level and flooding (National Geographic, 2013). Other measures like flood insurance collected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA have collected $3.5 billion annually along with the National Flood Insurance Program or NFIP (Cruz, 2020).

Research done by FEMA, found that 30% of the flooded zones that suffered major damage due to Hurricane Sandy included Staten Island and Queens taking the hardest hits (Ortega, Taspinar, 2018). In New York City classifying flood zones it is based on the hurricane evacuation zones defined by the city’s Emergency Management department. The zones indicate where in the area and when the community is highly at risk for flooding, see Appendix A: Figure 1 for more(Ortega, Taspinar, 2018).

Business owners in Queens comment in Jamaica and Woodside, experience a lack of action taken in their communities (Potkewitz, 2007). Local in the area have expressed frustration due to the flooding experienced year-round caused by heavy rainfall (National Geographic, 2013). The greatest issue experience in these local businesses is that there is a lack of action from the government taking to validate these impending issues (National Geographic, 2013).

Other areas in the southeast region are being affected by flooding especially the Wildlife Refuge (Polanco, 2021). This wetland contains mushrooms they are home to several species of birds and fish. They were created by melted glaciers 7000 years ago and how nutrient-rich mud and vegetation welcome organisms (Polanco, 2021). In areas like these, it is important to note that rising levels, storm surges, and other global climate-related flooding affects this area too (Polanco, 2021). In a 25-year study done, occurrences of heavy rain, thunderstorms, and floods in the New York City metropolitan area were covered to understand their effects on the marsh islands. It found that the storms, heavy rains, and thunderstorms increased percentages of flooding over time (Polanco, 2021). This affected the production of the vegetation density native to the marshlands (Polanco, 2021). This will in turn affect the organisms that rely on this vegetation to survive. Trends like those presented above raise a concern. The concern is that the flooding is pushing people away from where they are native.

Trends are being seen in repairing damages correlation to flooding before and after Hurricane sandy that differ. Before Hurricane Sandy, the flooding that the Rockaway community was experiencing required less repairs and time to rebuild compared to after Hurricane Sandy (Ortega et. al., 2018). And as a result after Hurricane Sandy housing values decreased as well. Though inherently the prices of housing are not increasing, the maintaining of said houses are requiring more investment due to increase of flooding (Ortega et. al., 2018). Especially in Zone A flood zones as seen in Appendix A: Figure 1, the risk of damage significantly costly to the residents. values of homes that experienced damage in varying severity, saw price reductions (Ortega et. al., 2018). In the years 2012 – 2014 there was a slow progress of housing sales. Sales went back up our steady rate between after the years 2016 and 2017 by the time reconstruction had ended (Ortega et. al., 2018). With the current state of the global climate crisis, the rise of sea levels can
affect low rise communities often deal with severe flooding ( Hartig et al, 2001).

Table 1: Housing sales and pricing data in Rockaway/Broad Channel community. This is an appeal to professional audiences who are analyzing the increases in housing prices and decreases in housing sales. (Furman Center)

COMMUNITY HEALTH CONCERNS

Because of how heavily affected the Rockaway/Broad channel community is affected by global warming, the residents have many damages to repair. With more frequent storms with increasing severity occur, the more frequent their rebuilding is.  This can result in health care facilities and primary care centers having to shut down because they cannot provide proper care in a damaged property (Guclu et. al, 2001). Especially in times of Hurricane Sandy where many residents and other primary health care providers had to evacuate and close their facilities operation (Guclu et. al, 2001).

As mentioned before, housing sales did not increase until around 2016 to 2017 when construction and damage repairs were ending. As a result, health care facilities work clothes for a long time after sandy which reduced the access of healthcare services in a neighborhood with a predominantly POC population. Hurricane Sandy impacted the access to primary care including seeing primary care physician, hospital access, urgent cares, and other emergency medical facilities (Guclu et. al, 2001).  See Appendix A: Figure 3 to see the most common illness in this community. In a community where there is a prevalence of chronic asthma among adults, chronic diabetes among children with asthma as well; the flooding and hurricane climate in Rockaway affect how residents can seek care especially in these times (Guclu et. al, 2001).  

CONCLUSION

The rising sea levels in the Rockaway/Broad Channel is causing a decrease in housing sales in this community. The residents in this area have higher damage cost due to flooding and hurricane. This affects how many can stay in the community. There are also influences the move in rate of this area. Those looking into moving to this area might be more hesitant because of the amount of damage control required. The government does not have many measures protective measures and protection plans to ameliorate these issues. The reallocation of money could benefit this region because many homes are being damaged or lost. There are means to put up barriers or other flooding reducing measures that can be taken. As well as relying on scientific data that shows the serious impact of global warming and its impact on communities. Governments can listen to the communities by hosting town hall meetings and finding out what the community needs.  By looking into this issue, more government can understand why the housing is increasing and potentially create more insurance policies for residents and their damage is to be repaired. The more resources that are put into the hands of the residents the battle this situation can get if used properly. In time the global climate crisis might be approached differently if residents are more vocal and government officials take action.

References

The best neighborhoods in Far Rockaway, NY by home value. (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://bestneighborhood.org/best-neighborhoods-far-rockaway-ny/

Binder, S. B., Baker, C. K., & Barile, J. P. (2015). Rebuild or relocate? resilience and postdisaster decision-making after Hurricane Sandy. American Journal of Community Psychology, 56(1-2), 180–196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-015-9727-x

Flooding leaves Queens businesses up the creek; Owners join with local politicians to call for investigation, long-term solution. (2007, August 20). Crain’s New York Business, 23(34), 25. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A167973091/BIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=14e7fc13

Gornitz, V., Couch, S., & Hartig, E. K. (2001). Impacts of sea level rise in the New York City metropolitan area. Global and Planetary Change, 32(1), 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0921-8181(01)00150-3

Guclu, H., Kumar, S., Galloway, D., Krauland, M., Sood, R., Bocour, A., Hershey, T. B., van Nostrand, E., & Potter, M. (2016). An agent-based model for addressing the impact of a disaster on access to Primary Care Services. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 10(3), 386–393. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2016.44

National Geographic Risings – NY Sea Grant | Welcome. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://seagrant.sunysb.edu/media/sandy12/NationalGeographic-RisingSeas0613-Web.pdf

New York neighborhood data profiles. NYU Furman Center. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://furmancenter.org/neighborhoods/

New York City Community Health Profiles. Community Health Profiles – NYC Health. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/data/data-publications/profiles.page#qn

NYC communities battle flooding. Danielle Cruz’s Portfolio. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://danielle-cruz.format.com/nyc-communities-battle-flooding

Ortega, F., & Taṣpınar, S. (2018). Rising sea levels and sinking property values: Hurricane Sandy and New York’s housing market. Journal of Urban Economics, 106, 81–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2018.06.005

Polanco, H. (n.d.). Observation of saltwater marsh resiliency to sea level rise in Jamaica Bay, Long Island’s oyster and Great South Bay: 1995 to 2020. CUNY Academic Works. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/780/

Queens: The brand residents don’t buy. Queens The Brand Residents Don’t Buy RSS. (n.d.). Retrieved May 12, 2022, from https://macaulay.cuny.edu/seminars/maskovsky10/articles/h/i/s/History_of_The_Rockaways_847d.html

Rockaway/Broad Channel Neighborhood Profile. NYU Furman Center. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://furmancenter.org/neighborhoods/view/rockaway-broad-channel

Appendix A: Figures

Figure 1: Overview map of NYC hurricane evacuation zones. Most parts of Rockaway are in Zone B and areas of land closest to the water are in Zone A (Ortega et. al. 2018).

Figure 2: Housing quality in comparison to other parts of NYC data collected by NYC Community Health. (Community Health Profiles, 2018)

Appendix B: Tables