Buildings Chapter Summary
New York State has nearly 5.3 million buildings, and all of them are vulnerable in some way to the impacts of climate change. Buildings support the social infrastructure in which New York State residents live, learn, and work, and they host essential services like healthcare and education. Understanding climate change impacts on buildings is critical because risks to buildings threaten not only individual lives but also the health and resilience of communities.
This summary provides an overview of climate change impacts on buildings in New York State. It includes a synopsis of key climate change hazards, equity and justice considerations, impacts on Indigenous Peoples and Tribal Nations, key findings from the assessment’s Buildings chapter, and opportunities for the future.
Climate Change Hazards and Impacts on New York State’s Buildings
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Climate hazards—such as increased temperatures, heat waves, changes in precipitation, sea level rise, and storms—affect buildings in a variety of ways. No location in the state or building type is immune to the impacts of climate change. Every county across the state is at risk from climate-driven hazards already, and buildings will become more vulnerable over the next century.
Climate Equity and Justice
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Everyone deserves to live, learn, work, and play in a safe and healthy environment, even as the climate changes. That is climate equity. However, some groups are more exposed to climate change hazards, are more at risk of harm, or have fewer resources to recover and adapt. This is often the case among historically underserved and underrepresented groups of people. Working to help these groups adapt to climate impacts is a form of climate justice.
Lower-income communities, in addition to Indigenous, Black, and Hispanic communities, are more vulnerable to climate change impacts. This is a result of other existing forms of social and economic marginalization, including legacies of displacement, historical and ongoing racial and ethnic discrimination, lack of access to resources, and higher exposure to environmental pollutants. These factors have forced vulnerable populations into older or poorly maintained buildings that may be more vulnerable to climate-driven weather events (e.g., high winds during a hurricane)—as well as into areas more at risk from climate change hazards.
Indigenous Peoples and Tribal Nations
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There are eight federally recognized Tribal Nations and one state-recognized Nation in New York State, as well as several other Indigenous communities that maintain ties to the state and live in surrounding states. The colonization and dispossession of Tribal lands, as well as forced migration to lower-quality lands, have contributed to the climate risks Indigenous Peoples face.
Indigenous communities experience vulnerabilities that affect their ability to prepare for climate impacts. These include relatively high rates of poverty and a major reduction in tribal lands, often to less desirable locations with higher exposure to climate hazards. Tribal governments are responding by preparing homes and other buildings for a climate-changed future.
For example, in its 2019 Climate Vulnerability Assessment, the Shinnecock Nation details how sea level rise affects buildings through both flooding of houses and saltwater intrusion into wells used for drinking water. The 2013 Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Akwesasne in the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation identifies how climate change affects buildings and describes building-related resilience and mitigation strategies, like removing brush and woody debris from around houses, cutting trees close to power lines and homes to prevent storm damage, and developing green building programs. Other Tribal Nations in New York State are incorporating sustainable design principles into their buildings. For example, in the Central/Finger Lakes region, the Tsha’ Thoñswatha’ fire station, built by the Onondaga Nation in 2015, incorporates daylighting as both a resilience and energy-reduction measure, as well as other features such as solar panels and a geothermal heat pump for heating.
Climate Change and New York State’s Buildings Sector: Technical Workgroup Key Findings
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Technical workgroups for each of the assessment’s eight sectors developed key findings focused on climate change impacts, responses, and solutions. More detail on the key findings for the buildings sector, and the evidence base for each finding, can be found in the full Buildings chapter.
Buildings of all ages, functions, and locations across New York State are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Climate hazards—such as increased temperatures, heat waves, changes in precipitation, sea level rise, poor indoor air quality, pests, storms, and flooding—affect buildings in a variety of ways. These hazards can result in structural damage to roofs, framing, foundation, and walls; damage to indoor building materials; water damage and mold; damage to electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems; and shorter lifespans of buildings and building systems (e.g., electrical systems; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems).
What Can We Do?
Property owners of both existing buildings and new construction can begin by identifying climate hazards that might affect their property and by implementing climate resilience strategies to address those current and future risks. For example, the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning has developed information to help building owners and managers, architects, builders, and others understand the vulnerability of buildings in different regions of the state to various climate hazards.
Given the long lifespan of buildings, new construction and retrofits that consider long-term climate projections will better address future climate risk.
New York State’s buildings are expected to support many generations of use, while individual components of those buildings (e.g., heating and cooling systems) may be replaced more often. Changes in the climate will continue to affect buildings into the future.
Many of New York State’s buildings are older and in need of rehabilitation or repair. Sixty-five percent of the state’s building stock is more than 50 years old, and 31% was built before 1940. Retrofitting old buildings with features such as high-performance energy efficiency windows, redundant building systems, and backup power can increase their climate resilience.
What Can We Do?
Considering climate projections and expected climate hazards in design can make buildings and their components more cost-effective, sustainable, and resilient from the start. Adaptation measures are needed only for buildings or systems that will still be usable when climate change impacts occur. For example, the foundation of a residential building could last for many decades, while its heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system might last only 15 years. During the lifetime of the building, replacing equipment at the end of its useful life provides a simple opportunity for adaptation. On the other hand, making changes to the building envelope—that is, the exterior building structure—can be much more complicated. This means that resilience of the building envelope is important to prioritize during design and construction.
Climate impacts to buildings can ripple to many different parts of a community.
Buildings protect people from exposure to weather- and climate-related hazards. When climate impacts damage or destroy buildings and building systems, occupants can be more exposed to outdoor hazards. They also face indoor hazards due to building damage and other cascading impacts. The effects of compromised or damaged buildings on occupants include:
- Exposure to extreme heat and cold.
- Respiratory illness from exposure to mold, allergens, poor outdoor air quality, and toxins.
- Exposure to carbon monoxide, pesticides, and other chemicals.
- Psychological stress.
- Financial impacts to household budgets.
- Job losses.
- Losses of homes and places of business.
These impacts to individuals often place additional stress on public and emergency services as they respond and provide resources to those in poor health or distress. Damage to essential facilities such as schools, community centers, and hospitals can compound those impacts during times of need by disrupting local services, including education and health care delivery. Damage to essential facilities can further strain the financial health of local governments because of the need for costly repairs or because of losses to the property tax base and associated economic activity.
What Can We Do?
Buildings such as schools, hospitals, medical facilities, and religious institutions play an important role in emergency response. Making critical buildings more resilient benefits not just the buildings’ immediate occupants and users, but also the community at large. For example, a combination of measures such as flood protection, wind protection, and backup power can help medical buildings adapt and continue to serve their communities during times of severe winter weather, heat waves, hurricanes, floods, and sea level rise. See the case study, Protecting the Most Vulnerable: Hospital Floodwall Retrofit in the Southern Tier.
Communities of color, Tribal communities, and low-income communities are more likely to congregate, live, and work in buildings that have greater exposure to climate hazards.
The impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed across buildings and populations. Frontline communities are often affected more immediately by climate change. These communities have experienced systemic socioeconomic disparities and environmental injustice; they include low-income communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color. Frontline communities also include communities that are the most vulnerable and will be the most harmed by environmental and climate injustice and inequitable climate actions.
Frontline communities are often communities of color, reflecting a legacy of racial segregation from discriminatory housing policies (e.g., redlining) and other forms of socioeconomic marginalization that have forced vulnerable populations into lower-quality buildings in areas that are at greater risk from extreme weather and other climate impacts. For example, housing developed for low-income residents is often located in more environmentally at-risk areas—for instance, in a flood plain or near an industrial facility—because the land is less expensive. As a result, these homes and other buildings in these communities are more susceptible to climate impacts. Historical lack of investment in frontline communities has often resulted in substandard maintenance, amplifying vulnerability to climate-driven weather events. Within these communities, older adults, children, and people with preexisting medical conditions are even more vulnerable to building failures and loss of utility services such as electricity.
What Can We Do?
A way to improve the quality and standard of buildings for residents of frontline communities is to build affordable, resilient new buildings or retrofit existing ones. For building owners, resources and programs are available to help support building retrofits. By rising to the challenge and adapting buildings to climate hazards, New York State has opportunities to create positive outcomes for residents of frontline communities. For example, more resilient buildings can not only reduce vulnerability to climate change but can also reduce energy costs for residents and create safer, healthier spaces in which to live, work, and learn. When focused on frontline communities, these efforts can help address longstanding inequities.
Individual adaptation and resilience strategies can address multiple climate impacts.
A well-chosen climate resilience strategy can address several of the climate hazards that buildings in the state will face over their useful lives. For example, green roofs can address both flooding and the urban heat island effect, while also reducing cooling load and holding stormwater that might otherwise flood a neighborhood street. Resilient design strategies can be implemented in many building types and can increase community-level resilience to climate change.
What Can We Do?
Building owners, community leaders, and policymakers can explore opportunities during construction and renovation projects to not only make their own buildings climate resilient, but simultaneously address other needs, such as reducing flood risk in the neighborhood. Policymakers can incorporate locally important climate resilience strategies into building codes and standards.
Opportunities for the Buildings Sector
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By rising to the challenge and adapting to climate hazards, New York State building owners, architects, contractors, and planners can create additional positive outcomes. For example, designing and developing more resilient buildings provides energy efficiency savings and improved indoor air quality. Resilient buildings can also help address longstanding inequities and promote justice if investments prioritize frontline communities that have the greatest need.
Building projects can also incorporate the concept of regenerative design, which involves creating spaces that reconnect occupants with nature while also improving the condition of the surrounding environment. Regenerative design embraces practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also making buildings more resilient to a changing climate.
Strategies intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings also present opportunities for resilience. Some of the same features used to reduce energy use and emissions also help improve building resilience to climate impacts. The use of onsite renewable energy and energy storage, for example, not only reduces emissions but also helps protect occupants from power outages related to extreme weather events. Resilience measures like green roofs can lower heating costs and improve public health outcomes for residents while also reducing the heat island effect and flooding in the surrounding neighborhood.
Advancements in building technology also provide opportunities for building projects. For example, smart microgrids and using renewable energy both reduce a building’s carbon footprint and potentially increase resilience for communities by letting them generate their own power.
Conclusions
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New York State’s building sector faces many challenges, but those challenges provide an opportunity to proactively prepare for climate risks in ways that also enhance justice, support local economies, and result in healthier and safer communities.
Buildings of all ages and functions are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The long lifespan of buildings, combined with the expectation that climate change risks will grow over the next century, will increase the need for future-ready resilience strategies in new and existing buildings. Securing the next 100 years for New York State requires adapting and planning now.
Historically, the building sector’s response to climate change has focused primarily on reducing carbon emissions. The future needs to involve not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also adapting to changes in the climate and creating resilient buildings. Furthermore, climate justice strategies and targeted investments will be needed to respond to the disproportionate impacts of climate change in low-resource and historically underserved communities.
Learn More
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Read the full Buildings chapter to learn more about impacts and adaptation strategies.