In 2023, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice (MOCEJ) launched Climate Strong Communities (CSC), an initiative to rethink conventional infrastructure planning by engaging communities at the earliest stages of the process. Not only does CSC aim to develop a community-centered planning process by proactively engaging with stakeholders, it is equally focused on maximizing federal and state funding opportunities; investing in communities left unaddressed by past hurricane recovery funding; and leveraging existing resiliency planning and capital commitments. Taken together, this approach drives the development of the next generation of equitable, multi-hazard resiliency and sustainability projects.