Join us! 3 PM at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon St. THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK -- PARKS ARE FOR ALL NEW YORKERS ACTIVISTS, ELECTED OFFICIALS CALL ON BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK CORPORATION TO STOP PLANS FOR 31 STORY TOWER IN WATERFRONT PARK PARK SUCCESS HAS FAR OUTSTRIPPED DECADE-OLD PROJECTIONS, RAISING QUESTIONS OVER NEED FOR ADDITIONAL HOUSING THAT WILL LIMIT PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE PARK FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUGUST 6, 2014 Concerned citizens seeking to protect Brooklyn Bridge Park from overdevelopment descended on a meeting of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation today to urge the board to stop plans to erect skyscraping apartment towers that will forever block the park’s full potential to serve the tens of thousands of Brooklynites and other New Yorkers who use it daily. Every elected official representing the area – Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, State Senator Daniel Squadron and City Councilmembers Brad Lander and Stephen Levin – urged the Board to reject the nine-year-old Bloomberg-Pataki plan based on projections that have been proven far short of the park’s current reality. In a joint letter to the board, the lawmakers reiterated their “ongoing opposition to housing at Pier 6” and said they are “opposed to the breakneck speed with which the Administration has moved forward on that plan, without any meaningful public engagement.” Plans call for erecting two apartment towers – one reaching 31 stories and the other 15 – on Pier 6 which was envisioned as the gateway to the southern end of the park. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Community Advisory Council has passed several resolutions asking the board to revisit its original plans in the face of the fact that attendance from every neighborhood and every demographic group all over Brooklyn has more than doubled the projections in the original General Project Plan. Similarly, the General Project Plan anticipated that housing construction would generate revenue to finance the park’s operations, but real estate values have skyrocketed dramatically in the area – more than doubling from the anticipated $725 a square foot – raising questions about the necessity of such massive construction that will eat away at what should be a signature East River waterfront park. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation acknowledged in a recent legal finding that plans have always been to carry out “the minimum development necessary to cover the park’s maintenance and operations needs.” The BBPDC in that same legal filing said if “market conditions will allow for less development to support the park’s needs, the development program will be reduced accordingly.” “The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has been anything but transparent in sharing financial and other data that would allow those of us who love and use this park to make a fully-informed judgment about the Corporation’s motivations,” said Martin Hale of People for Green Space who lives in Willowtown. “The Park has long committed that housing would only be built to the extent absolutely financially necessary. By operating without transparency, they undermine public trust. If buildings aren’t necessary, citizens must not be denied use of parkland common to everyone.” “Building apartment towers in Brooklyn Bridge Park, one of which is slated to rise 315 feet, is a recipe for denying the public access to a spectacular amenity that has proven far more popular than its original projections in a decade-old plan,” said Lori Schomp, author of the grassroots petition seeking to protect the park and a director of the People for Green Space Foundation. “Parks are crucial to livable and healthy cities and we want all these qualities for Brooklyn’s future.” People for Green Space Foundation has sued the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation and the state’s Empire State Development Corporation, which controls the site jointly with the City, seeking a reopening of the 2005 Environmental Impact Statement which was based on projections that time have proven far below the realities of the subsequent decade. A judge has stopped the park corporation from going ahead with Pier 6 construction until further hearings. Some park corporation officials and their allies have suggested that opponents are motivated to block the inclusion of affordable housing in the construction, an unfounded accusation which the activists and elected officials trying to preserve the park for all park visitors completely and utterly reject. “If housing were to be built in Brooklyn Bridge Park, we would absolutely support revising the General Project Plan to include affordable housing which would reflect the broad cross-section of Brooklynites who come to the park every weekend, but additional housing does not belong within the park,” said Andrew Barnes, a member of the grassroots group Save Pier 6. “It is wrong to try and pit supporters of the park against the need for affordable housing.” www.savepier6.org