Earlier this year, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities invited SWIM to write an article about our long term advocacy for New York City’s Green Roof Tax Abatement Program (GRTA). The piece, titled Fine Tuning NYC’s Green Roof Tax Abatement, was published on September 27, 2021 and reflects back on the sustained stakeholder advocacy efforts that have helped evolve the program over time.
The article also contains a link to SWIM's timeline of advocacy efforts (2007 - 2021) for the Green Roof Tax Abatement program. We’ve been at it for 13 years!
The article covers the early work of researchers and advocates working together to get the program up and running and the exemplary work of the NYC GRTA working group to move the program forward to its current iteration. We’re proud to have been a part of the recent working group that connected community stakeholders, environmental advocates, municipal agencies, and elected officials with one another to inform meaningful policy that will improve our neighborhoods and reduce stormwater pollution in our waterways.
We appreciate the input and support along the way from the team at Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. They have championed the cause for green roofs across the globe and we thank them for their efforts and for the opportunity to document NYC’s progress in their Living Architecture Monitor.
News Flash! Just as the piece was published, the Mayor’s Office issued a report outlining the many initiatives that the city will accelerate over the next few years to more rapidly address the impacts of storm related extreme weather in NYC. One of the initiatives mentioned in the report (see page 61) was the need to add more priority areas to the Green Roof Tax Abatement program and increase the program cap which, once you’ve read our article in LAM, you’ll see how excited we are about this development! Stay tuned for more updates soon on this topic.