Brooklyn Bridge Park, which stretches 1.3 miles along the East River waterfront, was a creation of the administration of Michael R. Bloomberg, with a novel — and contentious — financing mechanism in the form of luxury housing in the park.
But now that City Hall is under new leadership, a group of elected officials is calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to scale back some of that housing, intended to help pay for the costly upkeep of the park, which is buffeted by tides. In particular, they want the mayor to halt plans for two residential towers at Pier 6, one of several recreational piers in the park.
In a letter to Mr. de Blasio, dated April 7, a group of city, state and federal lawmakers expressed their dismay at the “breakneck speed” with which the administration was pursuing the housing at Pier 6 and urged the new administration to “work collaboratively on alternative park financing, rather than moving forward with the Bloomberg plan.”
The letter was signed by State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, State Assemblywoman Joan Millman, United States Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, and City Councilmen Stephen T. Levin and Brad Lander.
Maintenance of the waterfront park, whose piers are adversely affected by marine organisms, as well as winds and tides, is unusually expensive, estimated to cost about $16 million a year. But the housing, some of which is already built, was controversial from the start, with a number of community leaders and lawmakers arguing that it set a dangerous precedent for public parkland.
6 comments:
You know a lot of politicians will go out and fight fare hikes, gas tax hikes, toll hikes etc...They make themselves out to be a defender of the people, the common man or woman who is struggling to get by and can't afford the extra expense. You see the roads and subways in New York and you realize what's going on. They're not fighting for the little guy, they're fighting for dysfunction. If you don't want houses in the park, if you don't want higher fares and tolls, find the money elsewhere. NYC has more than 2.5 times as many police per capita as you're typical city, much more than that if you look at the amount of land they need to patrol. Maybe you can cut there, and significantly. Maybe you can pay for stuff now so you don't have to issue bonds and have the interest on those bonds crowd out everything else in the budget down the line. Maybe you can stop giving huge pension fund increases, at times retroactively, whenever there is a new bubble on wall street that temporarily hikes tax receipts.
The park is built. If you don't want houses there anymore, then raise city funding for parks, or at least for this one. Banning the housing now without increasing park funding will lead to the hundreds of millions poured into making Brooklyn Bridge Park a beautiful amenity for the people of the city of New York a complete and utter waste as the park falls apart, further cuts to the budgets of other city parks, or both. Just screaming that you don't like something without offering up a solution is the act of a childish nitwit. We need more from our representatives. The future of the city depends on it.
I agree - there are way too many useless cops in NYC! They're nasty and not very bright.
But really - how about curtting back on the food stamps for the Mercedes-driving Asians?
Lots of money there!
Anon # 1.
Do you expect any politician to do ANYTHING other than rob you blind, whether it be directly or indirectly ?
more leftover chaos from the fun size mayor.
"Mercedes-driving Asians?"
They park them in driveways in homes all over Flushing that are registered as Churches ! Tax them and NYC would have a tax surplus.
These cowards couldn't get their act together to block this when Bloomberg was mayor, and now, it's a fait acompli, the housing is already on top of the park.
What the hell can be done about it now? The damage is already done.
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