Program Management for NYCHA Hurricane Sandy Recovery & Resilience

Contract Scope with the New York City Housing Authority

In Fall 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated New York City and hundreds of thousands were without power and critical infrastructure. New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) provides affordable housing to over 350,000 residents, which accounts for 1 out of every 15 New Yorkers. Approximately 35 NYCHA locations were impacted by Hurricane Sandy, with loss of electricity, elevator service (some apartment buildings are more than 15 stories), heat/hot water, and other critical infrastructure.

APTIM has been the program manager for NYCHA Hurricane Sandy Recovery and Resilience program from the beginning. This $3.2 billion FEMA-funded program was the largest FEMA grant in history, at the time of its award. The Recovery & Resilience program provides renovations and upgrades to occupied, multi-story residential buildings at more than 35 NYCHA developments in effort to rebuild stronger and more resilient following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Flood protection elements have been incorporated into the recovery to safeguard families from dangerous water levels. Mechanical, electrical, and other upgrades have also been accounted for and installed providing storm resiliency for the safety of NYCHA residents during events. More than 210 buildings will be powered by emergency generators which will ensure that critical infrastructure can continue to remain online in future storms or outages. Additional site improvements and resilience features are being incorporated as funding becomes available, including site-wide lighting upgrades, enhanced security systems/CCTV, and improved landscaping. It was important to help NYCHA communicate with the residents of the development communities they serve in the aftermath of the storm and during redevelopment. Extensive community outreach and stakeholder coordination was critical to this effort when working in occupied residential buildings to keep residents informed of plans and progress.

• 35 NYCHA Developments

• 246 Buildings

• 60,000 Residents

• $3.2 Billion Program

As the Program Managers for the Recovery & Resilience program, APTIM is proud to live in New York and work to make our community more resilient from future natural disasters.

Resiliency Improvements:

• Storm surge protection
• Flood protection measures:
  • Dry and wet floodproofing, deployable barriers, passive barriers, and flood walls
• Backup generators installed
• Elevate equipment above flood zone

APTIM Resilience and Infrastructure Services Provided:

Program Management – Program management services for the $3.2 billion FEMA funded Recovery and Resilience program. Responsible for all programmatic items ranging from: scheduling, planning and risk management; grants management, reporting and budgeting; community outreach; oversight of design and construction activities; supporting procurement efforts; and project closeout. Learn more about our Program Management capabilities.

Grants Management – This was the largest FEMA funded grant in history at the time of its award and APTIM performed all grants management related activities. In addition to FEMA, there were other funding sources such as CDBG-DR and New York City. APTIM’s grant management team managed all requirements as a sub recipient, including, but not limited to, working hand in hand with FEMA on Project Assignments, submitting for reimbursements, supporting all audits. Learn more about BIL Grant Management with APTIM.

Community Engagement – The overall Recovery & Resilience program would not be possible without Community Engagement and the strong dedication to the NYCHA residents. From the beginning of the program, Community Engagement hosted design charrettes within the developments to facilitate resident input and comment on the upcoming projects. During the construction phase, residents were kept updated and informed on construction progress and any site-wide changes that would be occurring. Community Engagement would always provide advance notice via phone bank and flyers of planned utility outages because of construction activities.

Design Oversight – APTIM oversaw the design phase of the program and worked to ensure the scopes of each individual project remained within budget and met FEMA requirements.

Project Pre-Construction Phase – For the individual projects within the program, NYCHA utilized Design-Bid-Build and APTIM helped support to ensure the timing of project procurement and meeting the overall program scheduling milestones.

Construction Management – During the construction, APTIM oversaw the construction activities and ensured coordination across all stakeholders. APTIM served as oversight and facilitated consistency throughout the projects and across the program, for effective and streamlined management. Learn more about our Construction Management capabilities.

Start up and Commissioning Oversight – APTIM oversaw and helped facilitate the startup and commissioning of all the new resilience infrastructure features including the flood barriers and new emergency backup generator power. Learn more about our Startup and Commissioning capabilities.

Closeout Phase Professional Services – APTIM is and continues to provide close out of professional services and related tasks as it pertains to Program closeout.

Project Closeout – APTIM is and continues to provide project closeout services for the many projects within the overall Sandy Recovery & Resilience program.