The Climate Smart Communities (CSC) grant program provides funding for municipalities to address greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and climate change adaptation at the local level.
Donor Name: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
State:
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: (mm/dd/yyyy) 07/31/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Projects are divided into two categories:

Implementation – There are two subcategories of implementation projects: 

GHG Mitigation (non-power sector, e.g., from transportation and food waste). 
Climate Adaptation (reducing risks to residents, infrastructure, and/or natural resources from changing climate hazards). 

Certification – Projects in this category include inventories, assessments, and planning projects that build local capacity to respond to climate change and move municipalities toward designation as certified Climate Smart Communities.

Eligible Project Types and Funding Levels

Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) Section 54-1507 provides that adaption and mitigation projects must demonstrate an ability to identify, mitigate and/or adapt to climate change vulnerability and risk or demonstrate potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Projects that do not meet this requirement are not eligible for grant funding under this program.
The CSC grant program includes two different project categories: implementation and certification. The implementation category is divided into two subcategories: GHG mitigation and adaptation. Each category and the related project types are detailed below.

Implementation Category

Eligible implementation projects must be GHG mitigation or climate change adaptation projects, as described below, and be located within the State of New York. The expected useful life of an implementation project is a minimum of 10 years, pursuant 6 NYCRR § 492-3.3(e). 

Funding available – $21.5 million 
Minimum grant award – $50,000 
Maximum grant award – $2,000,000

Design and engineering expenses are limited to a maximum of fifteen percent (15%) of the grant request. For projects with outreach or educational components, curriculum or program development expenses are limited to fifteen percent (15%) of the grant request.
No more than fifty percent (50%) of the total available funds for implementation projects will be awarded to municipalities with populations greater than 100,000 or to any single municipality.
If funding in the implementation category remains after all awards in the implementation category are made based on eligibility, program requirements and goals, and passing score, DEC reserves the right to apply the remaining funding to eligible proposals in the certification category.
GHG Mitigation Projects

Eligible projects in the mitigation category must reduce GHG emissions. Projects shall be one of the following types to be eligible:
Reduction of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).
Reduction of Organic Waste
Refrigerant Management
Renewable Energy in Low-income Housing

Climate Adaptation Projects

Eligible adaptation project types include projects designed to provide a meaningful reduction of risk to residents, infrastructure, and/or natural resources from hazards projected to become more severe or frequent as a result of climate change.

Certification Category 

Certification projects focus on assessments, inventories, and planning activities that are part of becoming a certified Climate Smart Community. These actions also provide a basis for future grant applications in the implementation category. Only the 20 certification actions listed below are eligible for grant funding. 

Total available – up to $1,000,000 
Minimum grant award – $10,000 
Maximum grant award – $200,000

No more than fifty percent (50%) of the total available funds for certification will be awarded to municipalities with populations greater than 100,000 or to any single municipality
If funding in the certification category remains after all awards in the certification category are made based on eligibility, program requirements and goals, and passing scores, DEC reserves the right to apply the remaining funding to eligible proposals in the implementation category.

Eligible Expenses for Reimbursement
The following expenses are eligible for reimbursement:

Personnel Services: Salaries of staff, including fringe, directly devoted to project implementation. Grantees will be required to document dates and hours worked and tasks completed via time records
Contractual Services

Tasks completed by professional and technical consultants or contractors, e.g., engineering, planning, construction, and legal services, directly related to the project

Equipment

Purchase or rental of Equipment, e.g., backhoe, directly required to implement the project

Travel

Project related travel costs. Mileage will be reimbursed at the current federal rate and lodging at current state per diem rates for the location. Note that consultants should include travel in the overall cost proposal and not bill the grantee separately

Supplies and Materials

Supplies and Materials are defined as consumable products needed to directly implement the project, e.g., printing, copying, paving material, crushed stone

Real Property

The cost of fee simple land acquisition and associated legal fees, filing fees, closing costs, and transactional costs, provided they result in the final acquisition of land. Transactional costs can be submitted for reimbursement as incurred throughout the contract term, but grantees may be required to return payments to the State should the land transaction not successfully close. Transactional costs are limited to property surveys, appraisals, certified appraisal review, map and GIS/remote sensing data, phase I environmental assessment, title reports and title insurance, prorated property taxes, and state or local real estate transfer taxes, that are directly related to the project and necessary to facilitate a climate adaptation or mitigation implementation project.

Eligibility Criteria

All municipalities in the State of New York are eligible to apply for funding in response to this request for applications (RFA). For the purposes of this RFA and pursuant to 6 NYCRR § 492-1.1(j), a municipality is defined as a county, city, town, village, or borough (referring only to Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island) residing within New York State
Political subdivisions such as municipal corporations, school districts, district corporations, boards of cooperative educational services, fire districts, public benefit corporations, industrial development authorities, and similar organizations are not eligible to apply in response to this RFA
Applicants do not need to be a certified or registered CSC or be working toward CSC certification to apply in response to this RFA
Applicants must submit a resolution, adopted by the municipal legislative body, authorizing the application and specifying the match amount and the source of the local match. Applications submitted without such a resolution will be deemed ineligible
Two or more municipalities, or one municipality and a quasi-governmental entity or non-profit organization, may collaborate on a project; however, the applicant must be a municipality.
Applicants may submit several applications, but no more than one application may be submitted for the same project or project location.

For more information, visit DEC.