The Greenpoint boathouse scandal: The truth finally comes out

From Curbed:

Dewey Thompson of the North Brooklyn Boat Club reached out to confirm a few details.

According to Thompson, the North Brooklyn Boat Club will likely be the occupant of the community space in the new building that's planned for 51 Ash Street. Broadway Stages has let the boat club operate on the site rent-free for several years now, and they are currently in talks to give the club a permanent home in this new structure. Thompson said no lease has yet been signed, but it's looking very likely. The new boathouse would have 8,000-square-feet of space on the ground floor for an education center, boat storage, and public access to the water.

Thompson also said that the plan for locating the boathouse in the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center down the block fell through because they could not work out an agreement. They hope to finalize plans with Broadway Stages in the coming weeks. As for the "transient hotel" part of the new building, it seems like it will be lodging for production staff working with Broadway Stages (not a traditional hotel).

Well that certainly sounds like a load of crap. In other words, this is actually planned to be an apartment building, further gutting the Manufacturing/Industrial Business Zone, and to top it all off, next to a Superfund site. Who is going to make sure the occupants are transients? No one.

From the Daily News:

“It’s beyond sketchy,” Geoffrey Croft, executive director of NYC Park Advocates, said of the plan to use public funds to help build a for-profit enterprise, which was selected in 2011 and recently turned up on two local blogs, Curbed and Queens Crap. “No money from the city should go for a private hotel.”

“There’s absolutely no conflict of interest,” said Dewey Thompson, co-president of the North Brooklyn Boat Club. The club runs the boathouse at the mouth of the creek, near the East River.

“The grant money is going specifically and only to building the community boathouse facility within the commercial structure,” he said.

State Department of Environmental Conservation officials also said the money will be used for the boathouse, not for the hotel, and said the City Parks Foundation requested an extension for the project completion deadline, which was to expire on Feb. 18.

But Broadway Stages president Gina Argento told a different story, saying she plans to split the cost of the entire project, which will include about half a dozen hotel rooms, down the middle with the boathouse.

“Nothing is final yet,” said Argento, who has also been identified as an investor in the controversial Knockdown Center event space in Maspeth.

The City Parks Foundation would not comment. The city and state Health Departments and city Department of Environmental Protection did not return calls and emails.

Ah, so there we have it. Gina plans to use taxpayer money to build her fake hotel and has no problem saying so. Once again, this is someone found to be lacking good character, honesty and integrity, so there's no surprise here. The DOB filing says there will be 11 units in this building. She says "1/2 a dozen".

And embarrassingly, the City Parks Foundation will bend over backwards to help her build her hotel, going so far as to request an extension. This boat club hasn't been able to get its act together after several years, folks. They don't even have a lease or agreement for the new space at this point, and as Gina says, "Nothing is final yet." Take them off the list and redistribute the money to the other projects on both sides of the Creek that are ready to go.

Otherwise, it appears to be time to BRING IN THE FEDS.

$1M missing from Newtown Creek settlement money

From the Times Ledger:

The state Department of Environmental Conservation pledged to dish out $7 million in green projects to compensate for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment plant’s role in polluting the waterway of the same name, and the winning suggestions were announced Friday.

The state budgeted $75,000 for one of two projects at St. Saviour’s, which is a lot where a church used to sit but where a developer is currently building warehouses. The project is about 1 percent of the total allocation money. But the DEC put it near the bottom of a list of other, more expensive projects that must be completed first, which means the money might dry up before St. Saviour’s’ number is even called.

The money — which pales in comparison to projects like a $3 million boathouse in Brooklyn and a $2 million park in Dutch Kills — would be used by the city to begin legal proceedings to acquire the land where the park would be built, known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

On Sept. 30, a group of 13 Queens lawmakers sent a letter to the DEC asking to release the funds before the final projects were selected from a list of 22 suggestions on how to use the money.

“The release of the funding is imperative, since delaying the start of ULURP further threatens the acquisition and increases the cost of the project,” the letter said.

On Friday they saw that the money had been set aside, but might never be released at all.

A spokesman from the DEC said the state finalized the projects in the order they were ranked by the community.

“The state’s review did not change how the projects are ranked, but provides an opportunity for the development of projects on the secondary list should funds become available after the priority list is exhausted,” said a DEC spokesman.

But the final ranking put St. Saviour’s fourth, not its current seventh.

Ok, so not only is it easy to prove that the DEC did not do what it said it did, but here's a list of the projects:

City Parks Foundation EBP Approval Letter 10-25-11

If the settlement was for $7M and the projects on the list add up to $6M, then WHO POCKETED $1M THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO TO PARK PROJECTS IN COMMUNITIES SURROUNDING THE CREEK? Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the great reformer, actually approved this? Governor Andrew Cuomo, another great reformer, thinks this action by his DEC is just fine?

Why is a boathouse that the City doesn't want, that will be encouraging access to a Creek so contaminated that it's a Superfund site, entitled to 43% of the funds?

Well, why do you think? Of course, it's another development scheme.

Adam Perlmutter, aka the Secretary/co-founder of Open Space Alliance...one of those "public-private partnerships" you've been hearing so much about...was the attorney for developer George Klein back in 2004-2005 during the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezone.

Isn't it interesting that this development is moving forward after Dewey Thompson of OSA, a Brooklyn CB1 member, got the boathouse he has been lobbying so hard for?

So, some non-profit is going to get $3M to build a contaminated boathouse to attract more yuppies to not-yet-built towers along the shore, and Maspeth is not getting $75,000 for a new park even though there should be more than enough money left in the DEC kitty to cover it and the Greenpoint Monitor Museum project listed in the second phase.

This stinks worse than Newtown Creek at low tide after a rainstorm.

I predict that the electeds representing Maspeth are going to sit back and allow this to happen. No one will demand an investigation about the missing million dollars and no one will press for the rest of the funding to be released. After all, they have D's after their names on the ballots and are incumbents, so they don't have to work too hard to get re-elected in this town.

Pete Seeger and the LIC Community Boathouse

New boathouse for Flushing Meadows

From NYC Parks Dept:

"The Boathouse at Flushing Meadows Corona Park has provided visitors with a connection to the water and the park's history (it is one of many 1939 World's Fair relics). Meadow Lake has hosted numerous cultural events including the annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat race, and has provided the community with opportunities to learn sailing and rowing," said Commissioner Benepe. "Thanks to a generous allocation by Queens Borough President Marshall, the Boathouse will feature a new dock built with sustainable plastic lumber, a full interior and exterior restoration, along with a new public restroom."

Thanks to $5.6 million from Queens Borough President Marshall and $441,000 from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the 1939 World's Fair Boathouse and dock at Flushing Meadows Corona Park will undergo a full exterior and interior restoration. Along with a renewal of the boathouse's roof, windows and fade, the old wooden dock will be replaced with a wood alternative: plastic lumber. Half of the interior space will be winterized to allow for meeting spaces for groups to use during winter. Public restrooms will be added to the Boathouse's southernmost wing.

Additionally, areas surrounding the Boathouse will be paved to provide disabled access to the building. Under a separate $1.7 million contract funded by $1 million from Council Member Gennaro, $625,000 from a multi-modal grant from the State and $115,000 provided by Mayor Bloomberg, surrounding pathways and relocated portions of the lake edge will be reconfigured to address drainage problems.