Context:

Over nearly three decades, New York City purchased over 156,350 acres in the Catskills to protect its water supply, successfully securing an EPA waiver to avoid costly filtration. The city's land acquisitions, while beneficial for water quality, restricted development opportunities, leading to discontent among local residents and reliance on city land tax revenue. Recently, NYC decided to halt its large-scale land purchases after an independent review deemed most future acquisitions unnecessary, following pressure from the Coalition of Watershed Towns. A new Collaborative Streamside Acquisition Program will replace the old initiative, requiring local approval for land transactions and balancing competing interests. Rising housing costs due to gentrification now pose a threat to local communities, complicating self-determination efforts over land use.

Dive Deeper:

• New York City's initiative to secure a filtration waiver from the EPA involved acquiring 156,350 acres in the Catskills, larger than the combined area of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, investing $518 million to protect drinking water from pollutants without building expensive filtration facilities.

• The city's land purchases, while improving water quality and local infrastructure, limited development potential in the Catskills, creating tension among residents who saw developable land placed off-limits and financial dependency on tax revenues from city-owned properties.

• The decision to end the aggressive Land Acquisition Program followed an independent review and persistent lobbying from the Coalition of Watershed Towns, which argued that further land purchases offered minimal additional benefits in reducing water pollution.

• A new Collaborative Streamside Acquisition Program aims to address competing interests by allowing Catskill townships to approve land transactions, with the goal of ensuring a balanced approach to land use for water protection while promoting community engagement.

• Gentrification, driven by pandemic-era second-home purchases, has increased housing prices and taxes, threatening the affordability for long-time residents and complicating local efforts to regain control over land use decisions, posing a challenge without clear solutions.