Dear Friends and Supporters,
I am writing to ask for your help to make sure the Hudson Square sanitation facility is safe for our community.
I would like to ask each of you to take a moment to call Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler at 212-788-3191 and tell him why we must realize the Hudson Rise plan for District 3. Call Christine Quinn's office at 212-564-7757 and tell her she has to demand more for the district.
The Department of Sanitation ("DSNY") scheme devised by the Bloomberg Administration and endorsed by District 3 Council representative Christine Quinn simply does not work. It is out of step with contemporary waste management practices in cities around the world. The City proposes a 3-district facility with a 75' H adjacent salt shed to be located at Spring and Washington Streets. At 120' high and more than two blocks long, the garage is significantly over-built. By proposing to consolidate three districts into this one facility, it is well beyond the accepted understanding of the Fair Share provisions of the New York City Charter. Lacking any community amenities while placing a profound burden on the local area, it is contrary to PlaNYC 2030 planning principles. And making matters worse, at a half billion dollars, it is far too expensive in any economy, but outrageously so now, as our national and city economies struggle to recover from the worst contraction in more than 70 years.
Both the Bloomberg and Quinn administrations have sought to position the community's concerns as a "NIMBY response" -- but this is simple not true. The reality is that the district has always accepted the need to site a facility in the area. Importantly, the community has been willing to accept a two-district facility that incorporates rooftop green space for the area, which has the second lowest green space to residents ratio in the entire city. It is also important to note that the area bears the burden of the traffic from the Holland Tunnel, of the hundreds of trucks that are based in the UPS and FedEx distribution facilities, of the second worst air quality on the Eastern Seaboard.
Since the facility was relocated from Twelfth Avenue and 30th Street -- where it did incorporate green space -- DSNY, with the support of Administration officials and the office of Christine Quinn, has ignored the input of local stakeholders, hidden behind a lawsuit settlement and continually adjusted their numbers and designs to fit their audience. The only significant change to the original plan actually made it worse -- by moving the salt shed closer to the garage, to the riverfront, to residential buildings and to adjacent parks!
The community has worked tirelessly to bring a thoughtful solution that balanced critical services with residential life. In 2007, the community funded a study to develop alternative proposals for the facility, the winner of which is known as Hudson Rise (which also won an AIA award for best urban design in 2007). Hudson Rise would create a 2.5-acre rooftop park that has the potential to connect to the Hudson River Park for safe, accessible green space. Beneath this thoughtful addition to the Hudson River waterfront would be built a two-district DSNY facility as well as a Sanitation Museum. To achieve Hudson Rise, the City must be willing to locate sanitation facilities for District 5 -- which houses none of its own facilities -- outside of District 3.
Further, DSNY must seek alternatives for the salt shed, which in no case should be located so close to residential buildings, to the ventilation towers for the Holland Tunnel, or to Canal Street or Hudson River Parks. Road salt is an outdated protocol that is being phased out in Canada and in many of the states across the country hardest hit by winter weather. To build a salt shed of this size now reflects a decision to spend upwards toward $100 million on a facility that will be obsolete before its useful life runs out -- and to place residents and the parks at risk in the meantime!
The DSNY has already issued a Request for Proposal for Construction management of this outrageous facility -- and has included provisions that advise potential responders that "the cumulative floor area may increase by up to 25%, as programming and design development delineates the project." This plan can only get worse--unless the community comes forward to object now.
Rather than continue to develop these mega sanitation complexes, or push sanitation facilities in spaces and locations that do not work for local residents, New York City needs to take a harder look at the crisis of waste management and listen to those who are most affected.
I would like to ask each of you to take a moment to call Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler at 212-788-3191 and tell him why we must realize the Hudson Rise plan for District 3. Call Christine Quinn's office at 212-564-7757 and tell her she has to demand more for the district.
I want to fight for a better community and for a better city. But this fight must happen now...and we have to do it together.
Yetta
For more information please visit Realize Hudson Rise
