Pols Plea For Real Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Papers: Pols Push for Priorities on Park Plan: A coalition of Brooklyn elected officials is demanding that state planners build the open space at the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront development before building the high-rise condos. “We urge you to proceed with park construction … and defer development,” the six officials demanded in a letter to Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, which is leading the development of the site along the DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights waterfront. The controversial 1.3-mile waterfront project combines publicly owned parkland with luxury condos and a hotel — private developments that, according to project supporters, will generate tax revenue to pay for the maintenance of lawns, public beaches and playing fields. In the letter sent this week, City Councilmen David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) and Bill DeBlasio (D-Park Slope), Sen. Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn Heights), Borough President Markowitz, Assemblywoman Joan Millman (D-Brooklyn Heights) and Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Red Hook) asked the state to delay seeking developers until it is certain that it will really need all the revenue-generating sites that it has set aside to underwrite the project’s $15-million annual maintenance and operating budget. “We need to insure that they don’t build more than they need to,” Yassky told The Brooklyn Papers. Critics of the state’s condo-and-open-space plan called the letter a “plea for a real park.”

Share this Story:

•