SECAUCUS – Mayor Michael Gonnelli announced that Secaucus was among three New Jersey finalists in the Rebuild by Design competition established by President Obama. The program was created as part of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to find ways to alleviate flooding and prevent damage from major weather events.

Applications were submitted for different regions throughout the tri-state area, with ten design firms working with local communities to develop potential plans for storm abatement. A round of meetings with the public took place to discuss the challenges and approaches of the individual plans, with a large group of Secaucus and nearby residents attending a session at the public library on March 11.

The Secaucus project, titled “New Meadowland: Productive City + Regional Park,” can be viewed at http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/winners-and-finalists/.

“Our application is a finalist project along with Hoboken and a project from South Jersey,” said Gonnelli.

Winning design solutions may have the opportunity to be implemented with disaster recovery grants from HUD and other sources of public and private sector funding. The number of winners has not been announced, nor has the projected date when the final decision will be made.

“I’m hoping that they do the three Jersey projects and they give seed money to each project,” said Gonnelli. --Art Schwartz