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Newport News updates council on Bloomberg-funded sustainable cities effort, seeks community input and grant partnerships
Summary
City staff and the Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities Initiative team briefed council on a community-centered planning process, in-kind solar support and several grant applications aimed at flood mitigation, clean energy and coal-dust study feasibility.
City staff and an embedded Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities Initiative (BASC) implementation team updated the Newport News City Council on March 11 about early-stage work to identify climate, air-quality and resilience projects that center historically underserved neighborhoods.
The presentation, led by Daniel Collins, I‑team director for the BASC cohort, outlined a community-driven design process, ongoing workshops at Brooks Crossing and partner support from Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation, PolicyLink and the Sustainable Cities Fund.
Collins said the I‑team joined the city in November 2024 and has been working closely with the city’s new Office of Sustainability, the Office of Innovation and the Office of Neighborhood Services. "We're really at the beginning of this — gathering input, doing that discovery, having those conversations, and then we'll kind of move on into sort of that research or that prototyping phase afterwards," Collins said.
The presenters said BASC provides technical assistance, data analysis and design support intended to help the city develop projects with stronger grant applications and private-public partnerships. The team described efforts to ensure community-based organizations have "a seat at the table" in regular meetings and workshops, including visioning events already held at Brooks Crossing and additional workshops planned.
City staff said BASC-supported technical assistance helped attract an in-kind contribution for a proposed $150,000 solar installation in the Southeast community; staff said the contribution requires formal council approval before the project can proceed. "It creates affordable energy for partners in the community," a staff presenter said, noting the item will appear before council for authorization.
Collins and the civic designer, Vanessa Rigaud, summarized a list of priority topics the city submitted when applying to BASC: urban flooding, air quality concerns (including coal dust), transit mobility in some neighborhoods, and housing and energy affordability. The team said they are pursuing multiple grant applications, including proposals for green infrastructure to address flooding, a public-private clean energy funding application, and a smaller feasibility study focused on fugitive coal dust after a larger $20 million coal-related study grant was not awarded.
The team also described technical assistance to update the city’s climate plan. Staff said the existing "roadmap to sustainability" dates to 2013 and has had an internal focus on municipal buildings and operations; the update is intended to be more community-focused and better aligned with projects that benefit residents.
Council members asked about how BASC work would be integrated with the city’s strategic planning and budgeting. Council member Long asked where results would be housed; staff replied that the functions were established in the current fiscal-year operating budget and that, as capacity builds, the work will migrate into specialized areas and be reflected in the forthcoming strategic-plan update.
The presenters sought council help identifying resident and organizational contacts for engagement. Collins said the I‑team is recruiting a data analytics manager as a final hire and will continue supporting grant-writing and project implementation as funding is secured.
The presentation closed with an invitation to council members to share community connections and concerns that the team should consider during discovery and design work.
