Due to the large scale of this project, as well as the fact that it is altering the very coastline of the island, it is of critical importance that both the local Staten Island community, as well as the New York City community in general, are aware that this project is taking place and how it affects them. To that end, this project will have a public relations department tasked with promoting the development and ensuring that at all stages people are informed of the project, its costs and completion schedule.
There will need to be public service announcements placed in local newspapers to inform people about the project. These announcements will detail the major points of the project and direct them to this website for more detailed information. There will also be spots run on local radio and television with the same information. Finally, these spots will also run locally on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Beyond these general informational spots, the project will periodically release media statements to run in local newspapers. These will initially be calling for public hearings to be held on Staten Island. These will be used to discuss the project in an open forum. It is naturally expected that some people will be reluctant to see such a fundamental change taking place to their coastline, and this will be an opportunity for them to discuss this with the stakeholders of the program. However, as there will be no displacement of residents beyond the upgrades to the existing public housing projects, pushback from the public is not expected to be too strong.
All environmental impact studies will be posted for public display at the city council office of Richmond County, and these will be available for download from the project website. It is critically important that any concerns that are uncovered by environmental impact studies are fully researched and planned for to ensure that this project does not create any issues and only brings solutions.
If there are significant numbers of residents of existing housing projects that are against moving to the new housing, depending on how many people wish to remain in the existing style of structure, they can be relocated to other projects throughout this city, or if the numbers warrant it, one of the existing project sites on Staten Island can be kept as-is to house those people. It is also important that people moving to the new residences want to do so and are happy to be making a new community and wish to create equity in their own homes. We also want to ensure that we are not displacing people against their will and perpetuating the errors of previous generations where minority and impoverished people were shunted around like cattle. This project would fail on its core principle if it continued such destructive and ignorant behaviors. In addition to the public town hall meetings for community opinions, there will be private town hall meetings where residents of existing public housing can discuss the plan with stakeholders without the fear of speaking about their issues in the public arena.
