2025 Climate Week NYC | Climate Threats, Building Loss, and Heritage – Decision Makers at a Crossroads | Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability

Climate Threats, Building Loss, and Heritage – Decision Makers at a Crossroads

Climate Week NYC 2025

Friday, 9/26 | 8 – 11:30 a.m.
Gensler Family AAP NYC Center
Tata Innovation Center, Cornell Tech
11 E Loop Rd, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10044

In-person registration required | Livestream registration

Hosts: Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Cornell AAP, Regional Plan Association (RPA)

Building and infrastructure destruction and redevelopment due to climate threats are a reality for frontline communities struggling to maintain viable commercial corridors, provide fair and safe housing, and practice community heritage. These communities are the crucible for the investment and implementation of resilience planning. Here, decision makers are weighing the social, cultural, ecological, and economic consequences of building, infrastructure, and land loss against building reuse, new development, and ecosystem restoration. They are seeking other viable approaches and tools to support decision-making.

This conversation at New York Climate Week, convened by Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Regional Plan Association, invites the perspective of community leaders, policymakers, and design practitioners to discuss more than a decade of weighing near and long-term solutions and current perspectives on the role of zoning, resilience planning, adaptive reuse, and heritage practice in decision making. What opinions have communities formed about the fitness of solutions? Where have synergies emerged between strategies, and where do conflicts remain?

Agenda:

8 a.m.: Doors Open & Networking Breakfast
8:30 a.m.: Opening Remarks
9 a.m.: Panel Discussion I
10 a.m: Intermission
10:15 a.m: Panel Discussion II
11:15 a.m.: Closing Remarks

Speakers:

Billie Faircloth: Associate Professor, Cornell Atkinson Scholar and Senior Faculty Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Lori Ferriss: Climate Heritage Network Steering Committee Representative and Executive Director Built Buildings Lab
Rob Freudenberg: Vice President of Energy & Environment at the Regional Plan Association (RPA)
Zakhia Grant: Founding Member of ReAL Edgemere Community Land Trust
Michael Marrella: Director of Climate and Sustainability Planning at New York City Department of City Planning
Kevin Parris: Director of Queens and Staten Island Planning within the Office of Neighborhood Strategies at New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)
Linda Shi: Associate Professor; Director, Master of Regional Planning Program, Cornell University