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.
