Interview with Community Organizer Meredith McNair on Environmental Justice for the Jewel Streets

01

Background

Will Duhl: To kick things off, you have a background in research and urban planning. Could you talk a bit about what brought you to the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC), what you do there, and your overall role?

Meredith McNair

Sure. I started at Cypress Hills LDC in 2017 as a graduate fellow while I was in urban planning school getting my master's. I was focused on affordable housing development, but I also wanted to do local neighborhood planning and work around climate and resiliency.

Over the years, after starting full-time at Cypress in 2018, I've been able to meld the role to my interests. My title is Community Planner, so my job spans affordable housing development as well as neighborhood-wide planning initiatives as those come up.

The way we got involved with the Jewel Streets was through the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which granted us a lot to develop for affordable homeownership. We did a survey and found out that there was no sewer infrastructure. When we discovered that, we decided that rather than extending the sewer to just our property, we wanted to poll the neighborhood and advocate for public infrastructure for the whole community.

That is how we got involved with this environmental justice community: advocating for resilient infrastructure after seeing the terrible flooding that was happening there every day. It's been a very rewarding project, and working at CHLDC in general is great. It's a very mission-driven, community-based nonprofit. I've always wanted to work long-term in a neighborhood where I can see the impact of my work over time, because housing and infrastructure take years to come to fruition. So, I'm still working towards that goal.

02

The Justice for the Jewel Streets Coalition

Will Duhl: I was curious about the partnership between CHLDC and the East New York Community Land Trust (ENYCLT), which formed the Justice for the Jewel Streets Coalition. How did that partnership come together, and how do the two organizations divide the work?

Meredith McNair

It's been a really great partnership with the East New York CLT. My organization actually helped incubate the CLT: we originally hired staff, like Hannah, at Cypress during the time when she was recruiting community members to form the CLT. To this day, we still provide administrative support to the CLT and act as their fiscal sponsor while they transition out onto their own feet. We also share office space, so we've been close partners from day one.

On the Jewel Streets and the Justice for the Jewel Streets Coalition in particular, it's been hand-in-hand since the very beginning. Right around when we found out that our site didn't have sewers, the CLT was surveying vacant lots throughout the neighborhood and found several vacant lots in the Jewel Streets, including some city-owned lots.

We came together to do the door-knocking and community surveying that launched this coalition starting around 2021. We were out there together door-knocking, collecting surveys, and planning community meetings to bring people together to compile demands. We put those demands into a petition letter and sent it to city agencies, and the story goes on from there.

In terms of dividing the work, it's such a close collaboration that every step of the way feels like a 50/50 effort.

03

Building trust and organizing residents

Will Duhl: The Jewel Streets neighborhood has dealt with severe flooding and a lack of sewers for a long time. What steps did you take to build trust and successfully organize residents who have seen decades of unmet promises from the city?

Meredith McNair

Great question. When we first talked to people, we learned that they had been trying to advocate for infrastructure and flood relief for decades. Residents who had been there for 20-plus years told us that around the year 2000, they had a coalition that got close to getting infrastructure installed. The city had actually budgeted to elevate all the streets and install sewers, but for whatever reason, it never happened, and that budget money just kept getting rolled over every year. A lot of people were pretty jaded because they had received these promises but seen no follow-through. With those residents, it took quite a bit of time to build trust and belief that something could actually happen. Other residents had only been in the neighborhood for 5 to 10 years, and they were really eager to get involved and excited to lead this effort collectively.

At first, the city didn't respond to our letter, but we got then-Council Member Charles Barron involved. He was able to corral the city to come on a neighborhood tour, bringing out several high-level officials, including the heads of DEP and HPD, both Queens and Brooklyn Borough Presidents, and Council Members from both sides. They saw the neighborhood with their own eyes, and we brought residents out to tell their stories.

That really seemed to wake them up. From that day, we started having regular meetings with the city agencies and the residents. We had them address short-term quality-of-life issues, like flooding, trash dumping, illegal commercial businesses, and abandoned vehicles strewn everywhere, while also demanding long-term solutions for real infrastructure and neighborhood improvements.

We were very happy to see that the city took this quite seriously, and we saw real results relatively quickly. The Sanitation Department and the NYPD started carrying out tag-and-tow operations to remove illegally parked vehicles. They also did a mass cleanup campaign, picking up tons of garbage from vacant lots on the side of the street.

Additionally, they found a way to install catch basins at various intersections throughout the neighborhood to drain floodwaters. Rather than draining by gravity into the rest of the sewer system, these catch basins are connected to pumps that pull the water out into the system. Over the course of a couple of years, those catch basins were installed throughout the neighborhood and pretty much resolved the everyday street flooding. After a big storm, it may still flood a little bit, but it drains within 12 hours or so, rather than sitting there for weeks. Seeing those short-term results really helped build trust with residents, showing them that the city might actually come through this time.

04

Challenges and slow-moving bureaucracy

Will Duhl: What would you say were some of the biggest challenges you faced along that journey?

Meredith McNair

It was a challenge getting people to believe that the city would come through, and we still encounter that sometimes today. We just stay at it and keep the pressure on the city, hoping for results. To date, both the Adams and Mamdani administrations have been really on board, so that's good.

Other challenges relate to just how long things can take, especially for permanent infrastructure solutions. DEP spent several months, maybe even a year, analyzing drainage patterns and potential ways to drain stormwater out of the neighborhood. They told us early on that they wanted to install bluebelts to retain stormwater, which would also serve as publicly accessible open space. But it took a long time for them to actually map out how it would work alongside the street sewers.

Design seems to take a very long time. Even though DEP has a preliminary design now, it has to go to the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) for the detailed design. That process, plus procurement to get a contractor on board, can take a long time. They've told us that the sewers overall could take 10 years to install. So that's probably the biggest current challenge: how slow it is, and keeping residents motivated knowing that even after all this work and years of fighting, the actual implementation could take so long.

Will Duhl: In October 2025, the city announced the $146 million Jewel Streets Neighborhood Plan, but, as you've mentioned, the city is making very slow progress on the project. In this limbo period, how is the Jewel Streets Coalition pushing to prevent delays and ensure forward progress?

Meredith McNair

We meet with city agencies at least monthly, so we're always peppering them with questions about the timeline. We also brought leaders from the new administration on a tour last month, where we delivered a renewed list of demands. Chief among those demands were an expedited timeline and clarity about the process: not only for the infrastructure, but also for the Resilient Acquisitions program that they've announced.

This program will be piloted in the Jewel Streets to offer residents either a buyout for their property or a retrofit to make it more flood-proof and adapt it to potentially elevated streets. They announced this program last October, but the details have been vague, so we've demanded that they provide complete details by the end of this year. We are keeping the pressure on through internal meetings between the coalition and the city, as well as organizing residents around public letters and testimony.

05

Lessons for future resilience projects

Will Duhl: Looking at the big picture, what lessons do you think New York City can take away from the Jewel Streets Initiative when planning future climate resilience projects in other historically underserved neighborhoods?

Meredith McNair

So far in the planning process, the city has done a really good job of hosting public workshops to get community feedback and input from day one about what neighborhood redevelopment and infrastructure plans should look like. They have legitimately listened to community feedback along the way, which has made the plan stronger.

From day one, we wanted green infrastructure, and they are delivering on that. We wanted a sewage solution that didn't just raise all the streets by 10 feet. We wanted a more nuanced approach that wouldn't be as disruptive to homes, and we also wanted a buyout program. They have found a way to come through on all of those demands. That is always the model: actually listen to people in the community and deliver on their demands.

Of course, a lot still remains to be seen about how everything will be rolled out, and we hope to continue having a collaborative process. We know the city faces constraints in how it operates as a big bureaucracy, but we hope they can continue to be nimble and serve this community in an equitable way.

Will Duhl: Beyond the Jewel Streets, are there other policies or concrete actions you would like to see the city implement to protect vulnerable neighborhoods?

Meredith McNair

Yes. For me, the big-picture solution to managing climate change, flood risk, and the housing crisis is comprehensive planning on a citywide scale. You need to look at maps and data to find the highest-risk areas, think about ways to protect or potentially retreat from those places, and steer development toward transit-serviced areas with less risk.

These crises are so big that it takes a long-range, comprehensive, citywide approach to planning, rather than going neighborhood by neighborhood or site by site. Sometimes it feels like the city prioritizes housing development over long-range climate risk without fully grappling with that risk, which could put both old and new housing in harm's way long-term. We need to take a comprehensive approach to planning and development.

06

Advice for young people

Will Duhl: In neighborhoods like this, the housing crisis and flood vulnerability heavily overlap. I recently wrote an op-ed about how residents suffering from these floods are often priced out of safer housing options. Has this been your experience, and what do you think can be done about it?

Meredith McNair

Definitely. Residents in the Jewel Streets have reported that they purchased their homes because they were affordable, often having no idea about the flood risks they would face. One homeowner told me that very shortly after purchasing her home, they experienced a foot of floodwater, mold, and health issues that hadn't been disclosed before the purchase. A lot of people ended up here because it was affordable, without knowing all the underlying issues. Rents here are also pretty affordable, making it a bastion for affordability, while the surrounding area has only gone up in price.

When we talk about people taking a buyout, we have to consider relocation costs. One of our biggest demands is that the city not just pay the appraised value for these homes, but actually pay a premium so people can afford a comparable home in New York City, ideally within the neighborhood. That is our chief priority.

The same goes for renters in those bought-out homes: they need hands-on relocation assistance, including case management and financial support to move. It's a very difficult housing market to navigate, so it's crucial that those who choose to move get help affording comparable, safer, flood-proof housing, and that any new housing coming to the Jewel Streets remains affordable for the existing community.

Will Duhl: To wrap up: for young people like me who care about urban planning, climate justice, and community engagement, what advice would you give us on how to get involved and make a real impact?

Meredith McNair

I'm so glad that you found urban planning at a young age, because so many people arrive at it much later on. I'm still passionate about this field and think it's a great way to solve so many different problems in our communities.

Look into your own communities for local planning, development, and climate issues. Get involved with coalitions like ours, or look for volunteer and internship opportunities in the field. Stay informed and follow these stories, just as you're doing now.

Find ways to engage directly and raise your voice. Right now, it feels like climate has taken a backseat in public conversations and politics, and we cannot let that happen, especially for younger generations who will be dealing with the consequences. We can't only talk about climate when it's politically convenient. Make noise about this issue and keep reminding public officials that the risks are only getting worse. We see the evidence before our eyes every day with extreme weather and flooding. Highlighting the stories of the people affected through journalism, like you're doing, makes it something public officials simply cannot ignore.