Mayor Overrules Comptroller to Ensure Billion-Dollar East Side Resilience Project Moves Forward

The Mayor is apparently hell-bent on seeing through the billion-dollar East Side Coastal Resiliency Project. His office just overruled the City Comptroller’s determination to temporarily halt funding of the contract.

You’ll recall that Comptroller Stringer sent the contract back to the Department of Design and Construction due to outstanding issues including the contractor’s (IPC Resiliency Partners) failure to meet the City’s goal of hiring 30% of minority/women-owned enterprises. Moreover, it’s not fully clear whether IPC, which is a joint venture, filed the requisite disclosures in the city’s PASSPort system, as required by the Procurement Policy Board rules and the New York City Administrative Code.

Just two weeks post-rejection, Mayor de Blasio overruled Stringer and registered the IPC contract for the project, according to a mailer from East River Park Action. And surprising no one, cost of the project has reportedly ballooned past the initial $1.45 billion budget by another $317 million.

Work is expected to begin at East River Park sometime next month, where the city will uproot one thousand mature trees and raise the 46-acre green land with 8-10 feet of fill.

The whole shebang is expected to take at least five years to complete, and is intended to strengthen coastal resiliency between Montgomery and 25th Streets. It’ll be implemented on a two-phase schedule. So, rather than closing the entire park, area residents will have access to roughly half the park

Meanwhile, East River Park Action, which is spearheading the opposition effort, will be outside the west gate of City Hall at noon every day this week to “speak out against this environmentally disastrous project.”