By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A host of hot-button waterfront land development projects around the borough are now up for public debate under a planning outreach by the city.
In anticipation of its public meeting on the projects next month, the Department of City Planning is letting the public sound off online about their recommendations for developments ranging from Columbia University’s Baker Field sports complex expansion project to a proposal to clean up the stretch of green space between the George Washington Bridge and Dyckman Street.
“This is an exciting opportunity to acknowledge the role our harbor plays in shaping our City,” Amanda Burden, commissioner for City Planning, said in a public statement. The city’s broad-ranging plan to overhaul waterfront space is called “Vision 2020.”
The city has been doing outreach over assorted waterfront projects over the past year, and created a forum on their website with a map tool for the public to find publicly-accessible open space along the waterfront.
Potential plans in Upper Manhattan include an extension of the greenway between the George Washington Bridge and Dyckman Street. Locals say the area is currently overgrown and rife with condom wrappers, and many residents say they look forward to the city coming in to clean the area up.
Public reception has been mixed for Columbia’s request to use more city land in order to build their new sports complex at Baker Field near Inwood Hill Park.
Other proposed waterfront projects include adding street-end waterfront parks along the Harlem River on West 215th and 216th streets, similar to the way that the city has added “pocket parks” near Sherman Creek at Dyckman St. and Ninth Avenue.
The department formally launched “Vision 2020” last year as part of the New York City Waterfront Vision and Enhancement Strategy announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the spring. It plans to release a final draft of its plan at the end of the year.
The City Council will have to vote on any final proposals by the Department of City Planning.
The public meeting will be held at the Rosenthal Pavilion in the NYU Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, on Tuesday, October 12th at 6 p.m.
