Realizing a Resilient Edgmere: an Intersection of Housing, Equity and Environment
Doug presents a poster filled with community input at an open house. Photo courtesy of Doug McPherson.
The Residents Acquiring Land Edgemere Community Land Trust (the “ReAL Edgemere CLT”) received a $42,500 Leadership Grant from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation to hire Doug McPherson as its first staff member in the position of Interim Manager.
Edgemere is a low-lying, majority-minority community located on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York. It is situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay, New York City’s largest wetland. Jamaica Bay and its surrounding salt marshes, islands, and wetlands provide critical habitat for a wide range of wildlife, including birds, fish, and invertebrates.
Since 2017, community resilience plans and environmental studies have uncovered substantial environmental issues in the community: chronic flooding related to tides and heavy rainfall, suspected contamination in vacant lots, and lack of access to waterfront recreational opportunities. These risks are anticipated to increase as a result of sea level rise. At the same time, the studies and the resulting land use changes have made it easier to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy in a way that reduces vulnerability to flooding issues. It has also galvanized city, state, and federal support to improve resiliency throughout the Rockaway Peninsula. The CLT was selected by the City of New York to receive 119 publicly-owned lots to develop flood-resilient affordable homeownership and publicly accessible open space. This would be the city’s largest publicly-funded investment in new construction of affordable, flood resilient homes, and would transform the neighborhood in coming decades.
If we’re successful, our effort would be a watershed moment for the resilience of the Edgemere community
Doug McPherson
The ReAL Edgemere CLT was formed in 2021 as a community-led and community-focused non-profit that will steward the development of open space and affordable housing in Edgemere. It is an ambitious effort to ensure that residents of this community have a voice in how their neighborhood’s resiliency agenda will be realized. As Interim Manager, Doug will leverage his experience in city and state government, real estate, affordable housing finance, park equity and open space development, to lead the organization through the implementation of its environmental and sustainable, affordable housing goals, while gaining valuable experience in the non-profit sector.
“Work that expands access to open space for underserved communities has been a motif across my entire career,” Doug says. “I joined with Queens neighbors in a successful 10-year advocacy effort to have the city open a new rail trail that will connect six neighborhoods upon completion, and I’m currently in the midst of environmental review in a new 2-acre park in East Flatbush: an underserved central Brooklyn community that has been sorely lacking in open space since long before my parents arrived there as immigrants from Jamaica in the 1980s. I aspire to become a leader in the parks equity movement, and this position [will] allow me to do just that.”
This opportunity offers Doug the chance to work at the intersection of resiliency, equity, and environmental justice issues, while leading a non-profit organization for the first time in his career as an urban planner. It will also set the ReAL Edgemere CLT on the path to realizing its ambitious affordable housing and open space development goals.