Stop ‘inexperienced’ tech threatening our neighborhoods – Latest News
New Yorkers know what occurs when City Hall runs experiments on actual people, from the wastefulness of Thrive NYC to the risks of in-school “restorative justice.”
Today the experiment includes industrial lithium-ion battery storage websites wedged onto residential blocks.
Queens. Brooklyn. The Bronx. Staten Island.
Families get the risk. Bureaucrats get the press release.
I received’t let it slide.
In pursuit of greener power, City Council zoning adjustments have opened the door for energy-storage systems throughout far more neighborhoods, making many websites far simpler to approve.
The City Council’s fire and emergency committee is assembly this week for a listening to, however the message to the outer boroughs has been loud and clear: Sit tight, take the risk and be grateful.
No. New Yorkers will not be guinea pigs.
Walk with me. In Middle Village a large battery website is proposed at 64-30 69th Place, throughout from PS-IS 128 and subsequent to a day-care heart. Parents are proper to be livid.
In Marine Park, neighbors discovered huge systems are coming to Flatbush Avenue.
On Staten Island, residents are combating a number of places and asking why one borough ought to carry a lot of the load.
I’ve stood with these communities and I’ll keep standing with them as a result of they’re proper.
The gross sales job says these websites are protected and the Fire Department is prepared — and whereas I need clean air like everybody else, I additionally need honesty.
When these batteries fail, they fail large.
In Moss Landing, Calif., when the world’s largest battery plant burned in January, people had been evacuated and Highway 1 was shut down as a result of of the poisonous smoke. Firefighters needed to let it burn.
In Arizona, a storage website blew up and critically injured firefighters.
In Australia, a giant system burned for days after a coolant leak.
When a number of trailers went up in flames in Upstate New York, people had been instructed to shelter in place.
These will not be rumors. They are the report.
Upstate cities obtained the memo: Carmel in Putnam County moved to ban bigger battery systems, and Duanesburg has barred commercial-scale storage underneath its native law.
These are sensible communities. They checked out plume modeling, setbacks and the truth of combating a lithium-ion fire — and so they mentioned not right here, not now.
New York City ought to show the identical warning, however it’s not.
So how did we get right here?
When the City Council handed City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality in 2023, it modified the zoning playbook to encourage power storage and make siting a lot simpler.
Then, the broader City of Yes agenda that handed in 2024 obtained the development conveyor belt shifting even quicker.
Result: The similar communities already coping with unlawful smoke outlets, shelters positioned with out native buy-in, and a sliding high quality of life are actually being instructed they have to dwell subsequent door to battery depots.
That shouldn’t be equity. That is neglect.
Here is what I’ll do as mayor.
First, a laborious pause on websites close to people.
No massive lithium ion amenities within a important radius of colleges, day-cares, senior facilities and tight residential blocks. Draw vivid strains and persist with them.
Second, firefighter veto energy.
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No project will transfer till FDNY and unbiased specialists have signed off on a site-specific plan for thermal runaway, plume modeling, water runoff, air flow and cleanup.
Give the women and men who run towards hazard the precise authority to say this website is protected or that website shouldn’t be.
Third, actual neighborhood control.
For something greater than small accent systems, convey back a actual particular allow and actual hearings, ending the rubber-stamp tradition that City of Yes created round this technology.
If City Hall may fast-track it, City Hall can restore guardrails.
Fourth, equity. The outer boroughs will not be a sacrifice zone.
If City Hall insists on this infrastructure, it can’t be stacked on a handful of blocks. Set strict caps and balanced siting guidelines throughout boroughs.
Fifth, state partnership.
Albany ought to examine the upstate bans and moratoria and apply these classes statewide.
Hit pause the place the fire service says response shouldn’t be prepared. Set stronger setbacks and plume buffers.
Learn from Moss Landing earlier than we repeat Moss Landing on our streets.
New Yorkers are sensible. We need lights that activate and air that’s clean.
We additionally need common sense.
Do not tuck industrial battery depots subsequent to varsities and residing rooms.
Do not inform working households to trust a promise when the monitor report says in any other case.
As mayor, I’ll repair the excesses of City of Yes, put security first and defend the neighborhoods that constructed this metropolis.
That is the job. And I intend to do it.
Curtis Sliwa is the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City.
