The Bloomberg administration is eyeing the greenway for river-view apartments to attract families earning from $60,000 to $145,000 to Hunts Point.
By Jay Bachhuber
apethought@hotmail.com
A report quietly submitted to the Bloomberg Administration last May calls for a new village to rise on the shores of the Bronx River, attracting wealthier residents than now live in Hunts Point while increasing the neighborhood’s population by as much as 7,000 residents.
Titled “Visions for New York: Housing and the Public Realm,” the plan was crafted by the architectural firm Alex Garvin & Associates at the request of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
The Bloomberg Administration estimates the city’s population will swell to 9 million people by 2030. The Garvin report was commissioned to study where New York could accommodate new housing. It recommends lining the Bronx River Greenway, a park still in the planning stage, with high-rise apartments up to eight stories tall.
Last winter, the Mayor said that City Hall would develop a massive interagency plan to deal with the expected population boom, but the completion of the Garvin report went unannounced and unnoticed for months, and has yet to be mentioned by any of the city’s daily newspapers or television stations.
In August the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign posted a leaked copy of the report on its web site. The posting spurred critics who noted that the plan’s authors solicited no input from local residents and said the report focused on development opportunities instead of community needs.
Among those taking City Hall to task for failing to include them was Sustainable South Bronx, the Hunts-Point-based environmental organization that has spearheaded the creation of the Bronx River Greenway and spent a decade helping to raise funds to build it.
“This approach to development,” said Tom Angotti, a professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, “is really insulting to neighborhoods and communities’ intelligence.”
After learning of the uproar the Garvin report was causing, the Mayor’s Press Office released a statement reading, “Should the City decide any of the proposals merit action, we will seek public input including that of the community and the local elected officials.”
Angotti counters that, “The mayor makes deals behind closed doors, and once the deals are made he says he’s open to public discussion.”
The Garvin Report calls the current plan for the Bronx River Greenway “strong but one-dimensional.” Constructing apartments along the Greenway would attract residents, and the residents’ proximity to the park would deter crime, the report argues. The area would become “a spectacular new community,” it concludes.
Describing the Bronx River Greenway as an engine for residential growth, the report compares it to the Hudson River Park on Manhattan’s West Side. But while the Hudson River Park attracted luxury condos, the report envisions middle-class apartment buildings bordering the Greenway.
That would still put the newcomers’ income well above that of most Hunts Point residents. In October, when he announced that the city would buy 24 acres in Long Island City and build middle-income housing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the apartments would be for families of four earning between $60,000 and $145,000 a year, who would pay $1,200 to $2,500 a month in rent. Median household income in Hunts Point and Longwood was $17,144, as of the 2000 census. In Hunts Point alone, it was $16,339.
Only about one in 10 families in the area earn more than $60,000, according to the Department of City Planning, which says half the 13,181 apartments in Hunts Point and Longwood rent for between $300 and $750, and only 384 for between $1,200 and $2,500.
“What’s concerning about the report in general is the lack of thought in housing,” says Menaka Mohan, the South Bronx Greenway Coordinator for Sustainable South Bronx. “There’s not one word of affordable housing in the report, and 40% of Hunts Point is below the poverty line.” Mohan said she was also disappointed that none of the community advocates who’ve worked over 10 years to create the Greenway were consulted for the report.
Three housing sites are proposed for the Bronx River, but only part of one lies in Hunts Point, east of Edgewater Rd. between the Bruckner Expressway and Lafayette Avenue. Depending on how its eight acres were rezoned, between 700 and 1800 new apartments could be built there.
Saying, “Sometimes a more pedestrian-friendly environment actually promotes greater economic development,” the report advocates planting more trees, adding protected bike lanes and reclaiming streets such as Hunts Point Avenue for pedestrian use.
Angotti commends the Garvin plan for recommending new public space, but questions how dedicated Mayor Bloomberg will be to such proposals. “I’m especially concerned that this comes out in the second term in the fifth year,” he said. “If it’s all game playing for the real estate deals to look good, I’m against that.”
Report’s author responds
To the editor:
The recent article, “Will Apartments Rise on Bronx River Greenway?” adds to the ongoing discussion of long-term planning in our city, but there are two points that require further clarification.
The notion, quoted in the article, that the report favors a top-down planning process that ignores community concerns is unfounded. As the report explicitly states, “This report is not city policy. Rather, it is an independent analysis of potential strategic capital investments.”
If the city decides to implement any of the report’s recommendations, community participation will be essential — something that City Hall has stated publicly and repeatedly.
However, I believe it is irresponsible to go to a community without having developed physically, functionally, and financially feasible options that the community can consider. Simply asking a community for a wish-list will create frustration, unrealistic plans, and false expectations.
The article also cites critics who say that the report neglected the issue of affordable housing. In fact, the entire purpose of the housing sections of the report — both along the Bronx River and elsewhere in the city — is to recommend ways to increase the housing supply of New York City. New York’s housing prices are sky-high because we face a critical shortage of housing. Increasing the housing supply would lower housing prices for every New Yorker. That is basic economics.
What’s more, the report does not specify whether or not the units should be explicitly “affordable,” in the sense of being reserved for those under a certain income level. The city’s recent initiative to build middle-income housing in Long Island city, though certainly laudable, is entirely separate from the report, and is in no way applicable to the Hunts Point neighborhood.
I fully support the inclusion of subsidized housing wherever subsidies are available. However, the purpose of this report was to suggest suitable locations for new housing, not to propose how to finance them. How this housing will be built — if it is built — will depend upon the financing requirements of the project, the available subsidy programs in place, and the developers who choose to develop it.
ALEX GARVIN
President and CEO of Alex Garvin & Associates