Controversy Swirling Around Newtown Creek Boathouse - Public Funds Going To Build Private Hotel?

The North Brooklyn Boat Club is proposing to build The Greenpoint Boathouse and Environmental Education Center at a new location owned by Broadway Stages in a building which will house a small private "hotel" for company employees.  Broadway Stages president Gina Argento said she plans to split the cost of the entire hotel project, which will include about half a dozen hotel rooms, down the middle with the boathouse. 

Just how much is the boathouse supposed to cost now? Queens Crap points out that the original cost estimate for the project was $ 3 million dollars which left more than half of the settlement for other projects.  The City Parks Foundation (CPF) is overseeing $ 7 million dollars from the Newtown Creek Environmental Benefit Project Fund and is getting 10 % of the funds. 

It appears now that all of the funds could be used to build the controversial boathouse.

The project was orignally approved at the site of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center at 1155 Manhattan Avenue but that deal quietly feel through.   

All projects were supposed to be off the ground by February 18th, 2014, within five years of the MOU, but that is happening.  

The City Parks Foundation has quietly asked for an extension of the deadline for the boathouse.

"It is not fair that this project, which has been drastically altered from its original plans, gets an extension, while other projects which have been ready to go the entire time are told to continue waiting in line indefinitely," said Christina Wilkinson, head of the Newtown Historical Society.

The City's Department of Health and Environmental Protection fought against awarding the funds for the boathouse along Newtown Creek due to heath concerns over kayaking 

on a federal Superfund site. 

Three months later however State officials overruled the concerns of the two agencies responsible for public health and the environment and approved the  $3-million boathouse and education center.   

In April 2010, the NY State DEC selected three organizations to administer Environmental Benefits Projects (EBP):  City Parks Foundation (CPF) received $7 million; New York State Energy, Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) received $2 million; and Hudson River Foundation (HRF) received $1 million.   

- Geoffrey Croft

Brooklyn

It's not just the pollution that stinks along Newtown Creek.

Local activists are crying foul over what they say is a plan to use public money to build a boathouse inside a proposed four-story hotel at 51 Ash St. in Greenpoint, on the banks of the Superfund site, according to the New York  Daily News.  

The Greenpoint Boathouse and Environmental Education Center, a volunteer group that sends canoes and kayaks down the waterway dividing Queens and Brooklyn, was awarded $3 million from the state in 2011.


Not Happening.   The project was approved for the site of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center at 1155 Manhattan Avenue.  Apparently there were even some GWAAP board members who were not aware of the major changes to the project.  


“It’s beyond sketchy,” Geoffrey Croft, executive director of NYC Park Advocates, said of the plan to use public funds to help build a for-profit enterprise, which was selected in 2011 and recently turned up on two local blogs, Curbed and Queens Crap. 

“No money from the city should go for a private hotel.”

The state awarded the money to the nonprofit boathouse in 2011, from a $10 million fine levied against the city for missing a deadline to improve the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. It was supposed to be based at the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, but the 250-member group couldn’t come to a lease agreement. 

Instead, it took up Broadway Stage’s offer to move into a series of shipping containers along the creek on land owned by the production facilities company.  


The original cost estimate for the Greenpoint Boathouse and Environmental Education Center was $ 3 million dollars which left more than half for other projects. (image: Queens Crap.  http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2014/01/something-reeks-in-greenpoint-besides.html



Broadway Stages is now seeking zoning approval to build a private hotel on the site that would also include a two-story boathouse and community center.

“There’s absolutely no conflict of interest,” said Dewey Thompson, co-president of the North Brooklyn Boat Club. The club runs the boathouse at the mouth of the creek, near the East River. 

“The grant money is going specifically and only to building the community boathouse facility within the commercial structure,” he said. 



The North Brooklyn Boat Club in Greenpoint.


State Department of Environmental Conservation officials also said the money will be used for the boathouse, not for the hotel, and said the City Parks Foundation requested an extension for the project completion deadline, which was to expire on Feb. 18. 

But Broadway Stages president Gina Argento told a different story, saying she plans to split the cost of the entire project, which will include about half a dozen hotel rooms, down the middle with the boathouse.

“Nothing is final yet,” said Argento, who has also been identified as an investor in the controversial Knockdown Center event space in Maspeth.    

RELATED: BOATHOUSE FOUNDER IN HOT WATER


The North Brooklyn Boat Club in Greenpoint.   (Photo: Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News)

The City Parks Foundation would not comment. The city and state Health Departments and city Department of Environmental Protection did not return calls and emails.  

Local activists, however, say the plans should be re-evaluated. 

“The project that was approved is not what they are now proposing to do,” said Christina Wilkinson, president of the Newtown Historical Society. 

She also questioned the safety of boating on the polluted creek. 

“It’s ridiculous that a so-called environmental organization is promoting recreation on Newtown Creek,” she said. 

The waterway is one of the most polluted in the country, according to Environmental Protection Agency officials. 

In heavy rains, raw sewage and water ends up in the creek, said Queens College microbiologist Eli Dueker, who has studied the site. That’s in addition to the millions of gallons of oil that would up in the water. 

“There’s definitely an ‘eww’ factor,” said Dueker, though he admitted he understood the appeal of boating on the waterway. But “much of Newtown Creek is actually quite beautiful.”  

Read More:

Critics slam plan they say would use public funds to build boathouse in private hotel
New York Daily News - February 1, 2014 - By Clare Trapasso

What's Going On With Greenpoint's Newtown Creek Boathouse? 

Curbed - January 30, 2014, by Jessica Dailey

Something reeks at Newtown Creek (and it isn't the water)!

Queens Crap -  January 30, 2014  

New York Shitty
January 29, 2014

Anchors? Away! City looks to be torpedoing its own boathouse plan 

The Brooklyn Paper  -  June 23, 2011-  By Arron Short 

State approves Greenpoint boathouse

The Brooklyn Paper -  October 29, 2011 - BY AARON SHORT 

Newtown Creek communities to have their say on green projects

New York Daily News - December 1, 2010 - By Clare Trapasso

St. Saviour’s Park Activists Want State To Release Funds

A rendering depicting the community's idea for a park at the St. Saviour's site. Last week the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released its list of projects to receive $7 million in mitigation funds in connection to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment plant. The community in Maspeth is asking that $ 75,000 be released now to begin ULURP in order to acquire the property. The City Park Foundation is receiving a fee of $ 700,000. The site's owner recently began building warehouses. (Image courtesy Christina Wilkinson)

Queens

Advocates for a park at the St. Saviour’s site in Maspeth are hoping the state will change its mind and provide crucial funds for the project’s future, according to the Times Ledger.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation pledged to dish out $7 million in green projects to compensate for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment plant’s role in polluting the waterway of the same name, and the winning suggestions were announced Friday.

The state budgeted $75,000 for one of two projects at St. Saviour’s, which is a lot where a church used to sit but where a developer is currently building warehouses. The project is about 1 percent of the total allocation money. But the DEC put it near the bottom of a list of other, more expensive projects that must be completed first, which means the money might dry up before St. Saviour’s’ number is even called.

“It’s just very strange how this all came about, and I hope our electeds get the DEC to make an adjustment,” said Christina Wilkinson, an advocate for the park.

The money — which pales in comparison to projects like a $3 million boathouse in Brooklyn and a $2 million park in Dutch Kills — would be used by the city to begin legal proceedings to acquire the land where the park would be built, know as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

On Sept. 30, a group of 13 Queens lawmakers sent a letter to the DEC asking to release the funds before the final projects were selected from a list of 22 suggestions on how to use the money.

“The release of the funding is imperative, since delaying the start of ULURP further threatens the acquisition and increases the cost of the project,” the letter said.

On Friday they saw that the money had been set aside, but might never be released at all.

A spokesman from the DEC said the state finalized the projects in the order they were ranked by the community.

“The state’s review did not change how the projects are ranked, but provides an opportunity for the development of projects on the secondary list should funds become available after the priority list is exhausted,” said a DEC spokesman.

But the final ranking put St. Saviour’s fourth, not its current seventh.

The DEC is not the agency responsible for actually seeing that the projects are completed. That responsibility lies with the nonprofit City Parks Foundation, the group that released the list and order of the projects.

And the city Parks Department would be the agency responsible for implementing ULURP and has repeatedly pledged to begin the process as soon as the money is available.

Although there is $5.5 million in funds already allocated toward the park from various elected officials and sources, none of that capital money can be used for ULURP.

And the process will likely end in the city using eminent domain to seize the property, according to Geoffrey Croft, president of the nonprofit NYC Park Advocates, who said he had spoken with high-ranking Parks officials.

“The expectation is that the elected will continue to fund the acquisition for St. Saviour’s and by the time ULURP is complete we’ll have money to buy it,” he said.

But Parks has refused to make an official statement regarding the use of eminent domain.

A separate St. Saviour’s project was included in the winning entries, and would set aside $1.125 million for the park’s construction.

Read More:

St. Saviour’s activists want state to release funds

Times Ledger - November 4, 2011 - By Joe Anuta

Kayaking Banned On Newtown Creek

Kayaking is now banned from Newtown Creek thanks to a new policy initiated by the city. A policy clash between city and federal agencies confused environmental advocates last month who chided city officials for restricting access to the creek. (Photo: by Moses Gates)

Brooklyn

The city has suspended boating on Newtown Creek — a move that wipes out recreation on the polluted waterway as the federal government begins a long clean-up, according to The Brooklyn Paper.

A Department of Environmental Protection said its short-term ban on launching boats from city-owned sites would remain in place until the state analyzes the creek’s water quality.

The move comes two months after the federal government listed the 3.5-mile Newtown Creek as a Superfund site — beginning a decade-long hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars clean-up.

Matt Mahoney, an official with the Department of Environmental Protection, said the city was banning recreational use of the waterways out of “an abundance of caution” with regards to public health.

But frustrated community members and environmental advocates castigated the agency for “deliberately crippling” recreation on the creek without having any public health data.

“No kayaker has been hurt or gotten sick after years of use of the public waterways,” said Kathleen Schmid, head of the Newtown Creek Alliance. “The city, as well as the kayakers, have known the state of Newtown Creek’s waters for years and the city felt no compunction to limit access based on information that they have themselves collected.”

Kayakers were upset to find signs posted last month at the entrance of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk near Paidge Avenue that read, “No kayaking or launching of any water craft from this site is allowed.”

The timing of the announcement arrives paradoxically as other city agencies are investing in new ways to expand public access along Newtown Creek — including a renovated park at the end of Manhattan Avenue and a proposed boat launch inside the ground floor of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center.

The city has already moved to prohibit boating at the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, which it manages, where community members discovered a “No Kayaking” sign at the park’s entrance a month ago, though community members think that the restricted public access is simply about liability in the post-Superfund world.

Read More:

City tightens ban on Newtown Creek kayaking

The Brooklyn Paper - November 15, 2010 - By Aaron Short

River stance! City says no to Newtown Creek kayaking

The Brooklyn Paper - October 21, 2010 - By Aaron Short

Newtown Creek Designated Superfund Site

A Walk In The Park - September 29, 2010

Newtown Creek Designated Superfund Site

An area of industrial buildings along Newtown Creek.  The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday it had designated Newtown Creek a Superfund site, promising a thorough environmental cleanup and a comprehensive evaluation to identify continuing sources of pollution.  (Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Brooklyn - Queens

The Environmental Protection Agency has designated Newtown Creek, between Brooklyn and Queens, a Superfund site, promising a thorough environmental cleanup of a long-neglected waterway that was once one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in the city, according to the New York Times.

The Superfund designation, which was announced on Monday by the agency’s regional administrator in New York, Judith Enck, means that the E.P.A. will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the severely polluted creek to determine what kind of cleanup is needed and to identify continuing sources of pollution. Community advocates, environmental groups and members of Congress had long sought the designation out of concern about the extent of contamination and its possible danger to residents.

The creek, about four miles long, is now the second active Superfund site in the city. The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, another waterway suffering the consequences of its industrial past, was placed in March on the Superfund’s National Priorities List, a designation reserved for the worst-contaminated sites in the nation.

Six other Superfund sites across the country were also chosen on Monday, including a section of the Black River in Jefferson County, N.Y., that was contaminated with P.C.B.’s and other chemicals. P.C.B.’s, or polychlorinated biphenyls, can cause cancer and affect the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems, according to the E.P.A.

“Newtown Creek is a key urban waterway, which provides recreational and economic resources to many communities,” Ms. Enck said in a written statement. “Throughout the investigation and cleanup, we will work closely with the communities along the creek to achieve a revitalization of this heavily contaminated urban waterway.”

Water samples from Newtown Creek, a branch of the East River and part of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary, have revealed the presence of pesticides, heavy metals, P.C.B.’s, volatile organic compounds and other contaminants. Despite the continuing pollution problems, the agency noted, residents use the creek for recreation like kayaking and fishing, and some eat the fish they catch.

The creek’s polluted condition also reflects countless oil spills from the dozens of refineries and fuel storage centers that have operated along its banks since the 19th century.

Read More:

U.S. Cleanup Is Set for Newtown Creek, Long Polluted by Industry

New York Times - September 27, 2010 - By Mireya Navarro