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Golf Clubbing Bronx Residents? Also: When Stadiums Win, Do Parks Lose?


Environmental groups and residents of a nearby housing project are suing to stop the construction of a golf course at Ferry Point Park, a large and neglected tract near the Whitestone Bridge that was once a municipal garbage dump. The groups charge that the city pushed ahead with the project without fully investigating potential health and environmental threats. They claim that the city and state accepted the results of an inadequate environmental assessment conducted by a consultant hired by Ferry Point Partners, the golf course developer, bypassing the more thorough environmental impact statement that would usually be required for a brownfields redevelopment project like this.

The developer began work last summer, clearing the land and bringing in fill for the project, which besides a golf course also includes a 7-acre community park across from the housing project and a 19.5-acre public waterfront park and esplanade. The course has the vigorous support of the local community board and city officials. They note that the developer is paying for it, not the taxpayers, and that environmental watchdog agencies approved it. Parks Commissioner Henry Stern called the lawsuit "frivolous." City Councilwoman Madeline Provenzano, who represents the Throggs Neck area, said, "This group didn't surface until everything was a 'go.' It's been planned and thought about for a good long time."

But the environmental groups got involved at the request of housing project residents, who were upset when the golf course plan was changed to block access to the waterfront from their side. The residents also told of their concerns about the old dump and health problems in the community.

The Ferry Point landfill was closed in the 1960s, although illegal dumping continued for years afterward. It was one of many dumps throughout the city that were closed before laws were enacted to regulate the disposal of solid and hazardous waste. At that time, industrial chemicals ended up in many municipal landfills (five other city dumps of that era are now listed by the state as hazardous waste sites), although no evidence exists that this occurred at Ferry Point. But even household trash contains small amounts of chemicals and heavy metals that are leached out by rainwater, combining in a toxic brew called leachate that can seep into rivers, lakes or groundwater. Decomposing garbage also produces methane and other combustible and toxic gases. Modern landfills are engineered to prevent the spread of these wastes. Ferry Point was not

The city eventually covered part of Ferry Point with a layer of soil and let nature take its course, but the dump was never properly sealed or monitored. Longtime residents say that during the 1970s and 80s, spontaneous methane fires frequently broke out during the heat of summer. In the early 1980s, according to an affidavit by Lehra Brooks, a resident of the housing project, numerous complaints about the fires, foul odors, blowing debris, and health problems led to community meetings with the Parks department and Community Board 10. Tests at that time showed the presence of chemicals that, while not dangerous individually, could be toxic or combustible when combined. Brooks recalled that the city promised to clean up the site, but nothing ever came of it.

The recent environmental assessment conducted by the developer found toxic chemicals in the park, including volatile organic compounds, DDT, lead, arsenic, and PCBs. The state Department of Environmental Conservation determined, however, that the levels were too low to be a health threat. Methane was also detected, requiring modifications in the golf course plans. Department spokeswoman Jennifer Meicht said, "We've thoroughly evaluated the potential environmental and health impacts related to the site, and we're confident that, as proposed, the project will be fully protective of public health and the environment."

The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and the other parties to the suit (the New York Public Interest Research Group, the Throggs Neck Houses Resident Council, and the Blue Angels Radio Control Model Airplane Club) disagree, noting that the environmental review didn't delve into the history of the dump, test groundwater, or address the possibility that the construction could force methane to migrate to the basements of houses near the park. "We want to see the site thoroughly investigated," said Michael Livermore, an environmental associate at the New York Public Interest Research Group. The groups are also concerned about potential contaminants in the 750,000 cubic yards of construction debris being used to top the landfill. This phase of the project required a permit from the Department of Environmental Conservation because the developer is essentially operating a construction and demolition landfill. The permit calls for extensive oversight to make sure the fill is "clean" (as defined by the department, which does allow for some level of contamination), but Meicht said she had no information yet about the monitoring.

Anne Sounds Off: Stadiums 3, Parks 0?

Why does it often seem that when stadiums win, parks lose? There is always public money for another new stadium, but private groups are increasingly expected to pick up the tab for maintaining our parks. Sometimes, actual parkland is taken away for sports arenas. And at the same time that commercial sports venues are promoted, a crying need for playing fields and recreation is ignored. To our shame, New York City has the fewest public recreational facilities per capita of any major city in the United States.

Two new minor-league baseball stadiums, for the Yankees in Staten Island and for the Mets in Brooklyn, are expected cost the taxpayers about $150 million. The mayor has offered to pay one-third of the cost of a proposed new stadium on the West Side, this time being promoted for both the Jets and a long-shot 2012 New York Olympics bid. Estimated costs for that project are $1 billion for the stadium, and another billion for the necessary infrastructure. And these figures don't include the additional services (like police, transit, fire, and sanitation) that will be needed to support the stadiums when built.

The Parks department's entire operating budget is about $150 million a year, about half of what it was in the mid-1980s. The reason Central, Prospect and other showcase parks, especially in Manhattan below 110th Street, look so good -- in spite of 64 percent reduction in Parks maintenance staff in the last decade -- is that they have the financial support of affluent neighbors or the business community. But go to parks in the poorer neighborhoods of Queens or the Bronx, say, and you'll find a different story. The Parks department has also been able to compensate for the loss of maintenance staff by using thousands of Work Experience Program workers to clean the parks. The results of this were documented in a recent study by the City Independent Budget Office, which also shows that the number of those workers is now declining.

In an article in the Daily News reporting that New Yorkers oppose public funding for a stadium on the West Side by a 3-1 margin, Mayor Giuliani was quoted as saying, "Very often, people misunderstand economic development. I don't agree with them." With all due respect, there is one aspect of economic development that the Mayor doesn't understand. Although economists have found a poor return, in terms of jobs and economic growth, on taxpayer subsidies for stadiums, studies have shown that public investment in well-maintained parks does pay real economic dividends. Among other things, it increases real estate values, reduces crime, and draws tourism. It also makes a city more attractive to people and businesses looking to relocate. Money magazine's Best Places to Live 2000 listed good parks among its criteria: "Along with our usual emphasis on solid schools, low crime and job growth ... we also wanted areas ... where city fathers have put a premium on green space ..."

Sure, sports teams have their place in our city and our hearts. But putting public funds into our public parks, instead of building more stadiums -- now that would be a fabulous legacy.

Anne Schwartz is a freelance writer specializing in environmental issues. Previously, she was the editor of the Audubon Activist, a news journal for environmental action published by the National Audubon Society, and an editor at The New York Botanical Garden.

Budget cuts and the parks


 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent proposal to patch the enormous hole in the city's budget includes the inevitable budget cuts, as well as tax increases and new revenue sources like bridge tolls. The cuts will squeeze all city agencies, parks included. But unlike past eras of austerity, the pain seems to be distributed more evenly, an indication that this administration sees parks as an important factor in the city's quality of life. "Our sense of it is that the parks department has been treated like other agencies," Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said, "where in the past, the parks department was cut disproportionately, treated as if it were a non-vital service."

These new budget cuts, however, fall on a department whose funding has already been reduced to a minimum. According to the Independent Budget Office, money for maintaining and operating the parks and providing recreation programs was never fully restored from the cutbacks of the previous recession in the early 1990's. The parks department's share of the city budget has also declined, from .65 percent in 1991 to .52 percent in 2001. (It was .82 percent as recently as 1986.) "Parks have been cut in the good and bad times, drastically over the last 30 years," said Christian DiPalermo, executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, a parks advocacy group. "We would hope that City Hall and the mayor would consider exempting further cuts from parks because of this history."

HOW WOULD PARKS BE AFFECTED?

The mayor's proposed adjustments to the parks budget would require combined cuts and new revenues of $8.7 million for this fiscal year and $18.6 million for the next. The department would lose 157 fulltime workers through attrition and reduce the number of street trees pruned by a third this year and by half next. There would also be an increase in the fees charged for the use of ball fields, tennis courts, recreation centers, and parking at Yankee and Shea stadiums. Except for the yearly recreation center fees, which mostly go back to the centers to cover their expenses, the rest of the new revenue would go to the city's general fund and be used as an offset to cuts.

Commissioner Benepe said there will be some impacts - water fountains and sprinklers might take longer to get turned on in the summer because of fewer plumbers, supervisors will be managing more people, and playgrounds that formerly had attendants in the summer won't have them. But, he said, "we should be able to maintain the overall quality of parks; people should not see a diminution of safety and cleanliness."

The funding reductions will further erode a fulltime staff that has declined steeply over the last 30 years. The number of fulltime employees has dropped from more than 6,000 in 1970 to about 2,000 in 2001. This labor pool has been replaced by seasonal workers, as well as by participants in welfare-to-work programs, who are paid by the Department of Human Resources, using federal and state money. The welfare workers fill the parks department's need for large numbers of people to do unskilled work, like raking, cleaning, and painting. "The welfare-to-work program is at the core of how we deliver se rvices," Commissioner Benepe said. The parks department now has 4,000 welfare-to-work participants, although in recent years the number has dropped at times to around 2,000. The department trains the workers and helps place them in jobs outside the department.

What the parks department has not been able to replace with temporary and seasonal staff are the skilled workers needed to tend trees and plantings and to keep plumbing in working order. Decades of staffing cuts have left the department with very few gardeners, tree pruners, and plumbers. According to the IBO report, by 2001, the department had only 12 fulltime gardeners for the entire city, down from 30 in 1991. (Central Park alone, which is funded almost entirely through private donations, has 73 gardeners.) During that time, the number of tree pruners declined from 99 to 55, and the number of plumbers from 30 to 18. The staff reduction slated for this year and next would further deplete the department's skilled staff.

THE SPECTER OF THE 1970s

In presenting his budget plan, Mayor Bloomberg stressed that the situation is not as bleak as the 1970s, when the city drastically cut services, stopped maintaining its infrastructure, and all but abandoned the parks. "This city is not going to cut its expenses below where the quality of life would start to deteriorate," he said.

Still, people are worried. "We're hearing from community groups that they're fearful that parks are going to return to the 70s when people were afraid to walk through dilapidated parks," said Christian DiPalermo. "We do think the commissioner is doing everything to avoid that in the way he manages the parks."

The parks are also in a different position than they were in the 1970s. Having come back from the abyss, in part because of partnerships with private groups like the Central Park Conservancy, the parks now have a vocal and committed constituency. The private sector contributes about $50 million a year for the maintenance and restoration of parks and facilities, and for programs, although the benefits have flowed mostly to parks in affluent areas. A network of 60,000 volunteers, with a core group of 5,000 to 10,000 people who work regularly, provides about $10 million in labor each year.

Although Commissioner Benepe is optimistic that donors will rise to the challenge and increase their support, the city can't rely on private funding alone. If the State Legislature and City Council don't approve the mayor's plans for increasing revenues, there could be deeper service cuts. Parks need regular maintenance, especially those that are heavily used. There is not much room left in the parks budget to cut before the downward spiral of the 1970's begins again.

Anne Schwartz is a freelance writer specializing in environmental issues. Previously, she was the editor of the Audubon Activist, a news journal for environmental action published by the National Audubon Society, and an editor at The New York Botanical Garden.

State Protections For City Parkland


Cities and towns are frequently tempted to use parkland for other public needs or commercial uses. Local governments are called on to widen roads, improve public transit or water systems, build schools and housing, and encourage economic development. Sometimes, a park is the most practical, or most expedient, site. Actions by municipalities may affect parks in other ways -- for example, through the draining of wetlands to build ball fields or the rerouting of traffic next to a park. State law in New York (and many other states), however, helps hold off potential park intrusions, as a number of recent and ongoing New York City park controversies illustrate.

The Public Trust

The major state safeguard for parks is known as the parkland, or public trust, doctrine, a widely accepted legal principle that parks are to be kept for the people. In New York, this doctrine is part of the common law, a body of law established through judicial decisions that recognizes rights that are generally agreed upon by society. New York State's common law is rooted in the centuries-old English common law brought here by the colonists.

The state courts have repeatedly ruled that if land has been dedicated as a park -- or, in some cases, used as a park consistently for many years to the point where it has been recognized as public space -- it cannot be "alienated," or taken for a non-park use, without the approval of the State Legislature.

This doctrine was invoked by the state Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, when it ruled that the city could not proceed with its plans to site a federally mandated water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park unless it got approval from the New York State Legislature. According to the city's plans, building the plant would have required closing the park's golf course and driving range for five years. The finished plant was to be partially underground, rising to a height of 30 feet at one end, with the driving range rebuilt on top. Residents of the adjacent neighborhood opposed the plan, as did the local state legislators, making legislative approval unlikely.

Public trust law also allowed Tribeca residents to sue to resurrect Canal Street Park, one of the city's first public parks. It was a small but elegant space first created by Ignatz Pilat and later remade by Samuel Parsons, both eminent landscape designers. The park fell into disrepair, and in 1929, without legislative approval, it was transferred to the state Department of Transportation and paved over to use during the construction of the West Side Highway. In recent years the city used it for parking garbage trucks. "This was one of those lawsuits that had a happy outcome," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. As part of its reconstruction of Route 9A, the state Department of Transportation agreed to build a new park. The design, by the department and the city parks department, is inspired by a combination of the two original versions, according to the commissioner, who said they hope to have construction under way by next spring.

In Staten Island, a controversy is brewing over the use of beaches for public transportation and commuter parking, a possible alienation of parkland. The city recently turned over a parking lot at South Beach to commuter parking during the week. The Staten Island Advance recently reported that the Port Authority is proposing to build a high-speed ferry pier and commuter park-and-ride lots somewhere on the beachfront, possibly Midland Park. Jim Scarcella, president of the Staten Island-based Natural Resources Protective Association, said, "If they're going to use our parks for purposes other than they've been intended, we're going to request they do the full act of the State Legislature that's required to do this."

Even when an alienation is approved, state law provides leverage to get something equivalent in exchange -- new parkland or park improvements -- as mitigation. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation publishes a guidebook on the process, which can be requested by mail from the Counsel's Office, Empire State Plaza, Building 1, 19th Floor, Albany, NY 12238.

A proposal for the United Nations to erect an office building on Robert Moses Park, an asphalt yard and dog run on 42nd Street, would have to go through the alienation legislative process. The new tower would provide offices for the 5,000 people who now work in the Secretariat building while it is being renovated. Acknowledging the importance of keeping the United Nations headquarters in New York and allowing it to improve its facilities, Dave Lutz of the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition speculated about what the city might get in return for giving up the only park in that area: "For years, people have been looking for a greenway past the U.N.," he said. Parks Commissioner Benepe confirmed that an extension of the pedestrian promenade along the river near the United Nations is one option being discussed. "There is very little open space in that community," he said, "so it would have to be replaced on a square foot for square foot basis."

Environmental Protections -- Or Not

State environmental laws also can be applied to protect the integrity of parks and natural areas, though there are loopholes, and enforcement remains spotty. State law covers wetland areas over a minimum size, including those in parks, but only if the wetlands have been officially identified on agency maps, whose accuracy has been questioned. The State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) mandates a review of potential environmental impacts (the environmental impact statement, or EIS) for major land use changes. But projects are often allowed to proceed when the state accepts a preliminary "environmental assessment" concluding that no further review is needed.

A project also is not required to have an environmental impact statement if it is a replacement "in kind," noted Mark Caserta, Director of the Waterfront Park Coalition. He said that his group is concerned about the effects of the city's replacement of the bridges over the Harlem River. The work could shower lead paint on waterfront parks adjacent to the bridges, increase traffic and air pollution in the area, and use as staging areas sites earmarked to complete a greenway along the river. But, because no environmental impact statement is needed, the city will not have to mitigate the impact.

But the fact that environmental laws are on the books gives citizens and advocacy groups legal tools when fighting a project they believe would cause environmental harm. These laws have also had an advocate in Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The Attorney General's office played a significant role in the Van Cortlandt Park case, and also sued to stop the city from selling or developing community gardens on city land.

In the community garden lawsuit, which was recently settled, the state based its case both on the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the public trust doctrine. Although the community gardens are not officially dedicated parks -- in fact, the city viewed them as quite the opposite, vacant lots temporarily growing tomatoes until a better use for them could be found -- the Attorney General's lawsuit argued that they had become parks by implication. "Some have been in existence for 20 to 25 years of continuous, uninterrupted use," said Assistant Attorney General Chris Amato. "They have large trees. They have benches. Some have amphitheaters. They have all the attributes of a public park, and are used that way by the community."

The lawsuit also maintained that developing the garden lots violated the environmental law because the city was proceeding to sell off or develop the lots without adequate environmental review or public input.

The final agreement released 38 gardens for the development of low-income and market-rate housing. These were the gardens that already had gone through the city's land review process. The largest number of gardens, 198, were offered transfer either to the New York City Parks department or one of the land trusts set up by two nonprofits that purchased more than a hundred threatened gardens several years ago. Gardens already under the jurisdiction of the Parks department, the Department of Education, and other non-developing agencies -- a total of 193 - will continue as community gardens. The remaining 114 gardens are subject to possible future sale or development, but only after a "garden review process" that is yet to be established. The city must offer an alternate site, which may or may not be feasible to the existing community gardeners.

As in the community garden issue, it can be a tough call whether a project is important enough to displace open space. Should senior housing, for example, take precedence? "Citizens take very seriously the value of the parkland at the end of their streets -- which is a double-edged sword, because sometimes there is a very good, rational reason to change the use of parkland," said Commissioner Benepe. "If there ever is a good, rational use for alienating parkland, we have to make sure we do our homework ahead of time, and make sure that substitute parkland is provided."

 


Sites For Beginners:

 

 

  • Neighborhood Open Space Coalition's Treebranch Network-- Among the areas covered by this longtime advocate for New York City open space are greenways, community gardens, parks, the waterfront, and Gateway National Park. Subscribe here free to the electronic version of Urban Outdoors Bulletin, an excellent source of news about parks and related issues.
  • NYC Department of Parks and Recreation-- It's easy to look up any park location, facility, program, or event at this site. You can also take a "virtual tour" (actually, more words than pictures) of several important parks in each borough, or design your own park by playing the NYC planner game. The "Daily Plant," circulated within the department, offers an inside look at park programs and events. Various park permits and applications, including a request for a street tree, can be printed and submitted through the site.
  • OASIS-- An interactive site that lets you view NYC land use maps or aerial photos by borough, neighborhood, community board, or zip code, then zoom in on details like parks, community gardens, or vacant lots and obtain zoning and ownership information. There are some inaccuracies, but users can help update the information.
  • Partnership for Parks-- A joint initiative of the City Parks Foundation and the NYC parks department. Under "What We Do," there is information about the Bronx River and other projects, citywide volunteer events, small grants programs, and many other efforts that help communities support and build constituencies for their parks.
  • Trust for Public Land-- This national open space group has increased its focus on urban areas in recent years. It has helped save community gardens and negotiated the purchase of several new state parks in the city recently. The site provides frequently updated information on the trust's projects and open space issues nationwide. Look under "Research Room" for urban land conservation and federal and state funding.
  • Urban Parks online -- An electronic toolbox for people working on city parks issues, from the Urban Parks Institute (part of the Project for Public Spaces, a NYC non-profit that aims to build community life through public spaces). The site brings together ideas from all over for creating, funding, and maintaining urban parks, and highlights park places and park news from around the country.

 

Anne Schwartz is a freelance writer specializing in environmental issues. Previously, she was the editor of the Audubon Activist, a news journal for environmental action published by the National Audubon Society, and an editor at The New York Botanical Garden.

 



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