More Controversy Over Condos In Parks

It's like Brooklyn Bridge Park all over again. The plan to build a waterfront park in Long Island City funded by the construction of new housing has neighbors and open space activists up in arms, according to the Post. The city will use the revenue from 5,000 planned apartments in the Hunters Point South development to pay for an 11-acre public esplanade — sparking fears that the parkland will feel private and that the city will begin relying on housing to pay for future park projects.

As is the case with Brooklyn Bridge Park, some fear that when the park is finished in 2013 it will "feel more like a fancy back yard for residents of the adjoining housing than a true public park," the tabloid reports. "It's a dangerous precedent to rely on these funding schemes, as they create an enormous disparity between the haves and the have-nots," said Geoffrey Croft, of New York City Park Advocates. "Plus, it's even worse than Brooklyn Bridge Park because Hunters Point is a denser project, with many more residents and less parkland."

But the city maintains that the Hunters Point project is a "unique situation" considering that the Brooklyn Bridge Park planners only added housing to the project as a way to keep it afloat, while apartments were always part of the plan in Long Island City. The city is currently trying to wrestle control of Brooklyn Bridge Park — part of which is scheduled to open shortly — away from the state.

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By Ben Muessig in News on December 29, 2009 8:52 AM

Comments [rss]

starrygordon

Are they still doing these developments? Long Island City is full of big holes filling up with water where condo projects were started and ran out of money. Unoccupied cheesy hulks abound. The only things that will remain when they fall down are their polished granite countertops.

Well, lots of you voted for Bloomie, and his developer friends do have to keep making money. Maybe they'll use the hulks to house the homeless at your expense.

books

you folks are idiots. where do you think the schools/hospitals/transportation is going to come from to service these new buildings?

no where new. its going to be thrown onto the same services you're using. Its going to DEVALUE the services/lifestyle you already have. The land developers will PROFIT by taking that VALUE out of the area you live in.

The whole we'll build a park distraction is BULLSHIT.

It doesnt cost much to make a park. its just land. heck the city could get that free by using eminent domain, but they only use that when its going to benefit some land developer. The city should build a park there to service the area, the same way the city built central park or prospect park a 150 years ago - back before the city became a CORRUPT business. This city is disgusting, theres so much corruption.

longacre

The new property taxes generated by these new developments should pay for whatever resources its residents use. If those dollars are not spent wisely, it is the government's fault, not the developer's.

ANGRYGOD11

That sounds good, but isn't the way NYC works. Local LIC property taxes cannot be legally collected and used only for the benefit of LIC. When Long Island City pays for it's own fire department, garbage department, police department, schools, streets and mass transit, then we'll talk.

Abbott

Devalue the services/lifestyle you already have? Have you ever been to LIC? It's being converted from an industrial area to residential. Your points are valid, but you clearly know nothing of this particular area. So, maybe you're the idiot.

books

blah. I go there everyday. Huge 30 towers already on the water, a whole little quaint old section, landmarked streets. Developers have been prying to get into LIC long before people cared about Williamsburg/Gpt and probably before you moveed here.

I have seen this cycle too many times now. take a out of the way area, people move in make it a nice area to live in, a decent neighborhoood. Greedy Corrupt land developers/politicians come in, rezone and double the housing, totally change the area, overtax the services, and the people who actually live there are screwed.

there is a VALUE attached to the character, makeup of a neighborhood. That is the value that the developers take with them when they overbuild your area. its been done all over bklyn these past 15 years. try doing that in some swanky area like bklyn heights. they are sure to get concessions before they build or they'll kill it altogether. but in this mop and slop areas, like lic, greenpoint, they've got no regard for the people who live there.

lets us build and we'll give you a park. check out the park the city is buiding down in dumbo/bklyn heights. How come they didnt have to put TOWERS in front of the promenade there to get a park built there? its all about money, corruption, inequity, class and the mirage of fairness. you've been warned.

HOTCUP

have you ever been there?? yes there are some big ugly warehouses visible from the 7/N/W trains, but the rest of LIC is actually LIC is quite, quite populated and residential. he brings up a very valid point.

Abbott

With the city's deficit as high as it is, finding creative ways to build public parks and other recreations on someone else's dime sounds good to me. I love Brooklyn Bridge Park and I don't live in DUMBO. I go there all the time in the summer.