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(sound of street and loud traffic and wind)
Narration:
The Brooklyn Heights waterfront lies under the Promenade and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, where the Brooklyn Bridge rises in front of the Manhattan skyline. Right now, a chain-link fence and a line of buildings keep visitors from actually getting down to the water. The Brooklyn Bridge Park plan aims to change all that. Virginia Terry represents the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, the group behind the plan.
AX: Virginia Terry:
One of the most exciting aspects of it is what it does at the water's edge. The design team approach is that the waters edge is the real attraction of these waterfront parks. That's where people are inspired, where they have the view of downtown Manhattan, the energy of the East River and they have this expansive view of New York Harbor.
Narration:
The long, skinny park would stretch from the foot of the Manhattan Bridge to pier 6 at Atlantic Avenue, almost two miles. It includes floating platforms, walkways, marshland, a boat marina, and protected areas for kayaking. The city and state contributed 150 million dollars to kickstart the project and the deal requires the park to include enough commercial development to pay for the future maintenance of the park. The current plan calls for three luxury-housing towers, But so far, the largest and most controversial one is a thirty-story tower planned for the pier six entrance to the park. Roy Sloane was head of the Cobble Hill Association and one of the original creators of the Brooklyn Bridge Park concept twenty years ago.
AX: Roy Sloane: (tease byte)
The central debate of this park has been: should it be a pretty green park that is effectively a backyard extension for some of New York's wealthiest or should it be a park for all the people of Brooklyn?
Narration:
Sloane says putting luxury housing in a public park will end up excluding people who don't live there.
AX: Roy Sloane:
I was delighted when Bloomberg and Pataki supported the park but am now very concerned that it isn't really a park that they are interested in, but primarily another housing development, with what many of us view as a publicly subsidized yacht basin.
Narration:
Because of their vulnerability to the elements, maintenance costs for waterfront parks tend to be higher than the cost of maintaining inland parks. The design team considered a number of options for raising money, including parking, office space, big box and other retail stores. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy's Terry says in the end it went with residential development because that would make the most money for the park. She says the housing towers are a good trade off.
AX: Virginia Terry:
The development as proposed is 8 acres, 10 percent of the parkland--- half of what was agreed to in the memorandum of understanding! And when you look at the big picture, when you look at the jewel that this park has the potential to become itís a very small price to pay for what we're getting in exchange.
Narration:
City Councilmember David Yassky, whose district includes the Brooklyn Bridge Park site, says the plan could still change.
AX: Councilmember Yassky:
We've always understood here in these communities that to get the park built will require some development to pay for it. My commitment Is that we should not have any more development than is necessary to build the park--and if the state is coming forward and saying we need a 30-story building and a 16-story building and another 16-story building up there, they have a strong hurdle to overcome in proving that that is necessary. I personally am not convinced that it is.
Narration:
The next step for Brooklyn Bridge Park is an environmental review, and presentation to Community Boards two and six. Once a park design is finally approved, construction should start by 2008. It is expected to last for approximately five years. Jess Mador, Columbia Radio News.