The Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU) convenes New York City, New York State, and federal stakeholder agencies together with leaders in waterfront resilience at a high-level working session on Research to Application Bottlenecks: Removing Regulatory Obstacles to the Creation of Nature-Based Resilient Urban Shorelines.

Coastal cities are home to 40% of the US population. They produce $10 trillion yearly in goods and services and hold significant assets in the real estate and tourism sectors. Furthermore, coastal cities are home to fragile but critical eco-systems between land and water. These urban, regional, and national assets are at stake in the face of growing climate risks. Innovations in nature-based urban shoreline infrastructure offer urgently needed solutions to these challenges. Yet outdated regulations and funding barriers often stall innovation. This convening is intended to help position New York as a national and global leader in 21st century urban shoreline infrastructure.

Led by Sulan Kolatan, architect, CSU Board Member and Vice President of CSU Youth + UN, and co-organized by Pankti Dalal (CSU fellow) and Makai Wilson-Charles (CSU youth volunteer), this convening will bring together regulators, policymakers, designers, and climate professionals to initiate the creation of regulatory sandboxes – flexible, time-bound frameworks that enable safe testing of novel approaches to accelerate mainstream adoption at-scale.

The event will conclude with the launch of a youth-led Urban Shorelines Restoration and Innovation NOW Initiative with presentations by young leaders from the Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE) and the International Water Association (IWA). The goal of this initiative is to broaden awareness about risks to urban shorelines assets as well as to increase knowledge about how to minimize these risks through innovation. In the follow up to the convening, participants are expected to make action pledges toward step change.