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Rezoning the Williamsburg and Greenpoint Waterfronts


With a wide brush stroke rarely seen in city land use policy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a massive rezoning of the waterfronts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in North Brooklyn from manufacturing to largely residential and commercial. To some the announcement comes as a relief; much of the area proposed has long been proposed as the site for power plants or waste transfer stations. Given New York's limited experience in reinventing its waterfront, can we really make it what it deserves to be?

Getting There from Here

Possibly the single greatest barrier to waterfront redevelopment in New York has been the lack of transportation. It is not so much a conspiracy as perhaps an unanticipated consequence of engineering; when bridges and tunnels were built a century ago, each was required to cross high over rivers or far beneath riverbeds. As a result, waterfront neighborhoods in the city generally have fewer options than upland neighborhoods, where the subway system meets the streets. Greenpoint and Williamsburg are no different, with only two subway stations (G at Greenpoint and L at Bedford) serving the waterfront area, and no direct connection to Midtown.

Water transit can help, but even with New York Waterway and upstart New York Water Taxi enjoying increasing ridership each year, the land-based system of streets and buses in the area leave much to be desired: there is really only one wide street running east-west (Greenpoint Avenue) that has bus service already, and on the waterfront at the end of the street lies a web of copper wires and mesh from the former WNYC transmitter that awaits removal before this area can be safely converted to public use.

Still, north-south movement within the area leaves a lot to be desired. The circuitous route of the G Train towards downtown Brooklyn Waterfront does not really serve the waterfront district, and connections to Long Island City could be improved with new or improved crossings over Newtown Creek.

Some say the answer to the transportation problems that afflict not just these areas but as far south as Red Hook and even into Sunset Park might be a waterfront light rail line similar to the one that the State of New Jersey has built connecting Weehawken, Hoboken, Jersey City and Bayonne just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Please, Not the Upper East Side

Over the 20th Century, New York developed a relatively limited design palate for waterfront revitalization. Early on, Robert Moses created a legacy of Parkways (like the Belt), in which the waterfront was set aside as green swath adjacent to a high-speed highway. Some say Hudson River Park is essentially this same model. The other alternative created towers on the water, and Waterside Plaza sits just across the East River as a massive, staid example of how private housing encroaches on waterfront public space. All along the Upper East Side the residential and hospital towers extend almost to the water's edge, leaving little room for "other" users or uses.

Battery Park City was a blank slate, whereas Greenpoint and Williamsburg are solid communities that have simply been deprived of their own right to access the waterfront. Will private residential developers be any more inclusive of other neighbors than previous generations of industry?

On the Upper East Side exist wide streets and bus routes every half-mile. Clustering developments along the east-west corridors makes sense in that higher densities can be served by transit just outside the front door. But with a 19th century street grid, Greenpoint Williamsburg has few such axes that can accommodate high volumes of traffic without flooding neighboring streets.

Of course, Battery Park City is often mentioned as New York's premier waterfront redevelopment, and given the involvement of Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden in both projects, hopes for design excellence are being raised higher. But the difference in Greenpoint and Williamsburg is that there already exists a palpable texture in the neighborhood that stretches down almost to the waterfront.

Because diversity in building material and architecture is what makes the neighborhood interesting, special efforts should be made to save the formal or local landmarks that are worth saving. Between the Greenpoint Terminal Market, 19th century loft buildings (including one reportedly designed by Cass Gilbert) and even the Department of Environmental Protection Sludge tank, there exists numerous and interesting building types and forms that could be incorporated into the new fabric this massive rezoning will weave.

But to make it better than Battery Park City, public officials and developers alike must remember that the water itself is the most critical piece of this puzzle. Rather than elevated promenades that provide great vantage points but virtually no access, the East River itself should be incorporated into the revitalization of these waterfront parcels. Obvious resources already exist. Bushwick Inlet could serve a whole host of uses along its three banks. The juncture of Newtown Creek and the East River create an eddy in the wake of Hunters Point where in-water activity could be accommodated with less worry and consternation than other open stretches of the East River. With a little imagination, area developers could even look abroad and find ways to actually bring the waters farther into the land by carving out new coves or inlets as Battery Park City did. In any case, the water should be the life of this neighborhood, and this rezoning represents a once-in-a-150 year opportunity to create a waterfront we can all live with for the next 150 years.

Looking back, Looking ahead

Early in the 19th century, much of this waterfront was actually a resort, a respite from the bustle of Manhattan and the ferry districts to the south. With steam engines and railroads, soon came the Industrial Revolution and by mid-century this entire stretch of northern Kings County became home to at least 49 oil refineries. And the legacy of this use still exists in dozens of tanks that remain in Northside as well as pollutive underground plumes.

This stretch of the East River included the shipyards from which the first Yankee Clipper ship was launched. As much as any single invention, the Clipper Ship became New York's greatest contribution to 19th century overseas commerce because of the great new sailing speed it enabled. With a fleet of clipper ships, New York became the hub of time-sensitive shipping, a business model that exists today in the forms of FedEx and Airborne Express. How ironic it is now that an area that spawned transportation innovations may be limited by the few options the 20th century has left it

Suburban Sprawl, City Troubles


Even as the city and state governments confront diminishing revenues and budget shortfalls, development pressures and real estate prices are climbing throughout much of the city's suburban rings. This trend, planning and conservation experts believe, is creating worrisome challenges for those concerned about New York City and the region's environmental future.

The continued pattern of sprawl development is, of course, nothing new to the New York urban area. It gained steam following World War II, when a suburban migration was fueled by inexpensive home loans for returning soldiers, increases in automobile production and federally-subsidized highway building. New tract housing communities, like Long Island's Levittown, became national symbols of America's post-war prosperity.

But what has some urban planners concerned today is that the unrelenting pressure of suburbanization is not only transforming some of the region's most important open spaces, but threatening to weaken New York City's critical mass over the long-term . If present growth patterns continue, New York City could be affected by more sprawl-generated pollution draining into city drinking water reservoirs, additional state and federal funds being diverted from the city to build new infrastructure in rural areas, and an erosion of the city's political power in Albany.

Taking a broad look at the current development trends is the staff of the well-respected Regional Plan Association (RPA). And much of what they see does not please them.

"Sprawling patterns of growth are an inefficient use of land that scatters jobs, houses, schools and shopping across the landscape," says Robert J. Pirani, director of environmental program at the Manhattan-based association. "It leaves people little choice but to use their auto for any trip," causing increased air pollution throughout the region. "It fragments the ecosystems that protect our drinking water and wildlife habitat and that provide recreational opportunities that we all enjoy."

Over the last 30 years, Pirani continues, suburban development has "outpaced population growth in this region by a factor of ten to one, creating fiscally unsustainable patterns of growth."

CHANGES IN THE LAND

Development pressures are being felt, even in these tepid economic times, throughout the New York region. In New Jersey, ill-advised sprawl development has led to frustrating traffic jams and ever-increasing strip malls, threatening even the state's more rural western counties and its southern cranberry bogs. On Long Island, new home-building has resulted in controversial road expansion projects and vanishing Suffolk County farmlands. .

But perhaps nowhere else are the bulldozers more active today than in the counties north of New York City.

"From north to south, east to west, residential and commercial developers in 2002 targeted Putnam County for their projects," Ann Fanizzi, chair of the Putnam County Coalition to Preserve Open Space recently warned.

Located just north of Westchester and less than 50 miles from the city, Putnam has for years been the fastest growing county in New York State. It is a rural landscape that is seemingly changing month by month.

A case in point is the Brewster Highlands shopping center, now nearing completion just off Interstate 84, which slices through the county. This new mall, with 370,000 square feet of retail space including Home Depot and other "big box" retailers, is being built on what had been beautiful, forest-covered Hudson highlands, part of New York City's Croton watershed.

"They cut off the top of the hillside, and they denuded the landscape," said Marion Rose, chair of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, describing the work of the Brewster Highlands developer.

Other developers, real estate lawyers and, in some cases, backhoe operators are already working on more than a dozen other Putnam County projects. The names of these landscape-altering developments are suggestive of the rural environments that they are unwittingly helping to transform -- "The Meadows at Dean's Corners," (in the town of Southeast), "The Campus at Fields Corners," "The Fairways"(in Carmel) and "Living Springs" (in Putnam Valley).

"Projects like these represent a direct threat to the future of the New York City water supply," says Robin Marx, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (where I work), who has focused on regional watershed protection for the past decade. She notes that 13 New York City reservoirs are located in Westchester and Putnam counties. They are subject to pollution from stormwater runoff that races off of parking lots, roads, rooftops and other paved surfaces associated with the new development, as well as from failing septic systems and sewage treatment plants that accommodate the new growth. In addition, she adds, the hundreds and hundreds of acres of new construction are replacing meadows, forests, and wetlands that serve as natural filters for the water supply of nine million downstate New Yorkers.

ACROSS THE HUDSON

On the west side of the Hudson River, the suburban and ex-urban counties of Delaware, Greene, Schoharie, Ulster and Sullivan are also facing mounting development pressures of varying degrees. Of course, these areas, as far as 150 miles from New York City, have not yet been built up to anything like lower Westchester and other close-in suburbs. But there is no doubt these areas are facing changing demographics, with adverse consequences for both upstaters and city dwellers.

In Ulster County towns like Woodstock and Phoenicia, second-home growth has been climbing for years. Now, due to such factors as increased Internet commuting and new living and vacation patterns in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, real estate demand is accelerating even in places like Hunter and Jewett (in Greene County) and Margaretville (in Delaware County). In Andes, another Delaware County community, 60 percent of the homes are owned by part-time residents and prices have climbed 25 percent in 2002.

In addition to the growing second-home market, several major development proposals, now under consideration, could spur rapid shifts in land use in these Catskill and Delaware watershed communities. For example, a proposed Belleayre Resort -- with two 18-hole golf courses, two new hotels, hundreds of residential units and ancillary commercial development -- has been proposed for nearly 600 acres on steep slopes that drain into the city's two largest reservoirs in Ulster and Delaware counties.

Also stirring controversy among both downstate and some local residents are plans for three new casino developments, to be located in the Catskills. (The first such facility, which would attract thousands of daily visitors, strain local transportation systems and create significant secondary development pressures, may be a casino to be run by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe and built on the site of the old Kutsher's Country Club in Sullivan county.)

At special risk from such west-of-Hudson development is the small family farm and the way of life that goes with it. Across New York State, the family farm has been in decline for years -- a victim of everything from falling milk prices to rising real estate values. In the town of Andes, for example, where hundreds of small dairy farms once operated, only four of appreciable size remain, the New York Times recently reported.

"It will be a shame for both upstate and downstate New Yorkers if we can't save at least the bulk of those family farms that are still operating," says Dave Dolan who works at the Delaware County-based Watershed Agricultural Council, helping farmers obtain conservation easements that protect their lands. Dolan believes, and water quality experts agree, that retaining farming as a local land use will better safeguard the city's upstate water supply than converting those parcels to residential and commercial development.

THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Earlier this year, 21 environmental and civic organizations wrote to Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, calling upon them to develop new state and city programs to help combat haphazard sprawl in the city's Catskill, Delaware and Croton watersheds. (See Gotham Gazette's February topic page on the environment.) In that letter, the groups recognized that "(t)he primary opportunity for subduing wastershed sprawl lies with our state officials."

To date, however, there has been little response from the Pataki Administration to the environmental and civic group request. On the plus side, state environmental conservation officials have meet with several environmental representatives and expressed sympathy with their overall concerns. But there are as yet no new state anti-sprawl initiatives.

In stark contrast stands the "smart-growth" efforts recently launched by New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey.

In January, Governor McGreevey boldly announced: "There is no single greater threat to our way of life in New Jersey than the unrestrained, uncontrolled development that has jeopardized our water supplies, made our schools more crowded, our roads congested and our open space disappear." Since then, the governor's anti-sprawl campaign has included the release of a draft color-coded map that divides the state into areas where the administration will seek to encourage development, areas where sprawl should be discouraged, and areas where development should proceed cautiously. The governor has also introduced legislation that would, among other things, give county planning boards the authority to levy fees on developers and have more input on regional development proposals. New Jersey is also proceeding with an aggressive plan to purchase and protect undeveloped lands throughout the state.

Environmental groups believe that New York City has begun to make progress in this area, but still has a way to go. The city's Department of Environmental Protection has recently been more vocal in questioning the potential impacts of major upstate development proposals on the city's water supply. And significant new plans for protecting upstate watershed lands, on top of the city's already existing program, are rumored to be in the offing.

To call for greater state and city action to combat suburban sprawl is not to pit city dwellers against our upstate counterparts, or vice versa. Smart-growth programs can benefit both New York City and its northern suburbs. As William H. Whyte wrote, in his 1988 classic, "City: Rediscovering the Center," a region with a strong center-city "give(s) coherence to a whole countryside."

Until state and city officials step up their actions to tackle the challenge of sprawl, city residents who care about their upstate water supply and the overall vitality of the region which New York City anchors should not rest easy.

Eric Goldstein is co-director of the urban program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fighting Over Outdoor Space


 

 
 

Three New York City issues that often lead to fierce disputes:
• Dog Runs
• Sidewalk Cafés
• Car-Free Parks

Dog versus human.

Baby stroller versus sidewalk cafe.

Bicycle versus taxi cab.

In New York, some of the most heated political struggles do not occur at City Hall, but out in the open - in the city's parks, sidewalks, and streets. These passions intensify each spring as everyone stakes a claim to the limited outdoor space.

Fourteenth century Britain faced a similar challenge (in a case that is cited in economics textbooks as the "tragedy of the commons.") The country was organized into a collection of villages, each with a collectively owned pasture called the commons. Each individual resident was allowed to graze his livestock, which worked fine as long as there was enough space for everyone. But if villagers could not find a way to control population growth, and in some cases greed, the economic system and the town would collapse.

Today, 8 million New Yorkers compete for a share of 309 square miles - only a small fraction of which can be considered public.

This competition sometimes pits humans against animals.

There are an estimated 1.5 million dogs in New York City and only 26 dog runs. Dog lovers argue that pets - and their owners - need space for the city to be livable. Opponents counter that dog runs are smelly, noisy, and a poor use of limited park space.

It extends to the sidewalks, another public place. There are 722 sidewalk cafes in New York City, twice as many as there were ten years ago. The cafes create a vibrant street life and help to bring business and revenue to the city. But residents who live near outdoor cafes complain that they are noisy and clog walkways.

Even the city's public jewels - Central Park and Prospect Park - are not immune.

When Central Park and Prospect Park were designed in the 19th century, the planners tried to minimize tensions between pedestrians and carriages by restricting them to separate pathways. "A carriage coming directly upon the course of a pedestrian or a man on horseback is an annoyance, if not positively dangerous," wrote Frederick Law Olmsted, one of planners. A century and a half later, park officials struggle to live up to that initial vision as walkers, bikers, joggers, rollerbladers, horses, and cars all vie for a lane.

The solutions to these and other local issues often fall to the residents who have the fiercest passions and conflicting notions of what constitutes "quality of life."


Three New York City issues that often lead to fierce disputes:
• Dog Runs
• Sidewalk Cafés
• Car-Free Parks



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