HUD to Hold Competition to Help Sandy-Ravaged Communities (New York Times)

New York Times
(6/20/2013 11:11 PM, Kia Gregory)

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development announced on Thursday that it would hold a competition to attract talent and projects to help strengthen communities battered by Hurricane Sandy.

The competition, Rebuild by Design, is part of the nearly $51 billion Sandy aid package approved by Congress in January after a long and contentious battle.

Officials said the competition should help guide government agencies at all levels as they develop plans to spend the federal money. They said they wanted locali ties to coordinate recovery efforts better and use some of the winning ideas from the competition.

"We want the brightest minds developing real solutions to the very serious challenges we face," the federal housing secretary, Shaun Donovan, said during a panel discussion at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. "We want proposals that will have an impact on the ground for people."

The department is seeking expertise in infrastructure engineering, landscape design, urban design, architecture, land-use planning, industrial design and other specialized fields. Designers selected would focus on coastal communities in the New York region, as well as on high-density urban environments and ecological networks.

The Rockefeller Foundation is spending $3 million on the competition, which will be run in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have identified $82 billion in storm-related damages. Hurricane Sandy killed more than 100 people, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, crippled mass transit, set off fuel shortages and paralyzed power grids.

"Sandy is a reminder of why we must rethink how we build moving forward," Mr. Donovan said. "It's not enough for any region to rebuild their communities back to the way they were."

The panel included academics and local officials from around the region.

"Although there is a lot city government can do, there's a lot city government can't control," said Seth W. Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, who worked on the city's $20 billion plan to prepare for climate change. "Without thinking regionally, we're not going to be able to solve the many problems we face."