Testimony at City hearing on La Marina’s traffic/parking/congestion/air quality impacts
At yesterday’s (Sept 8, 2008) meeting of City administration and borough president’s officials (including 2 reps from the Mayor, a comptroller, a few Parkies, and 5 boro pres reps - all I can remember) I gave the following, more or less, orally:
After identifying myself as from 1795 Riverside Drive, Tenants Assn, Inwood Livable Streets, and the RING Garden, and living as close as possible as one could get to the marina, and having stayed up nights in the past listening to the DIN, and having to help found DIN Action (which I described - FYI this is Dyckman Inwood Noise Action, a Yahoo group founded because of the din), I made the following points:
The concessionaires were asked at a CB12 meeting about how having a restaurant for 300 diners would impact traffic, parking, congestion and air pollution. There was no answer. I said that there is no plan for mitigation of environmental impacts stated in the contract. I recommended that a traffic study and parking study be done as part of CEQR and SEQR review (Environmental Impact statement) before any deal be concluded about this development. (Parks head of concessions, Kloth, was asked why they didn’t do an EIS, and he gave a weak argument (that there always was a restaurant and marina at the end of Dyckman and they didn’t think this was anything different). Two problems with this “reasoning” is that the last development was no good environmentally, and this one will be much bigger.
I said that the contracts allow the concessionaire free rein to advertise and what with the schedule of payments required to be given to the City in the contract mentioning revenues possibly being in the $4-5 million /year range based on a six month open season, I suggested that in order to do a project on this scale would require lots of dinners. I said that the concessionaires would not tell us at the Community board meeting how much a hamburger would cost, so all this together would indicate that the development is designed to attract customers from the region at the environmental cost to the local area.
Liz Ritter had mentioned that there is no mention of NYPD being involved to keep the peace and enforce laws. I echoed that. She had also mentioned insufficient attention to parking.
I mentioned that the restaurant closings for special events can be done as often as they want and Parks is well within its purview not to review any of the requests before the events occur the way the language is stated. Same goes for concerts.
I mentioned that the contract requires emptying the sewage tanks regularly, but there is no mention of periodic checking for leaks.
I could have gone into what the EIS could have studied, but I think I made my points.
I have no idea what the next step is or how to find out. I’ll bet CB12 knows..
If I understand this correctly, the plan is for another large restaurant at the marina. This is completely at odds with what should be parkland. I run through there several times a week and during the summer, particularly on Mondays Dyckman Fields is strewn with garbage from the day/night before. It’s disheartening, smelly, depressing and ruins the beauty of the area. There are no signs to dissuade people from littering and no obvious incentivse to keep it clean… at least not obvious to those littering.
The restaurant will only make it all worse. There should be GRASS instead of that stupid parking lot. The grass should join Dyckman Fields with the path along the Hudson that runs along the railroad, by the Inwood Canoe Club.
It’s a PARK and should be a park, not a parking lot. Any concession should be a Park concession as there are in Central Park, and it should be a destination to get to without a car.
I moved up to the area just over a year ago and I was so hopeful for improvements and this is the saddest development. It’s like going back to the 1970s. It’s a HUGE mistake. Why was Tubby Hook shut down? How will this be any different/better… how could it not be worse?
Is it too late?
Comment by Kate on September 9, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Thank you for your comments. The price for a cheeseburger will be in the $10 dollar range. Of course, the price will depend on food and other input costs, such as labor, power, etc. We have not fully developed the menu, so I cannot be more accurate at this time. Had you followed up with Liz before the meeting, she would have told you that we provided this information to the committee as we promised we would.
Kate, to answer your question, Tubby Hook was shut down because the concessionaire was arrested for dealing drugs; furthermore, he was in regular and flagrant violation of his contract with the city, and, arguably, a numerous city and state regulations dealing with building construction, fire code, and environmental issues. Thus, I am confident that our business will not be worse, because it will be clean, legal, and respectful of the neighborhood and the ecology of the area. Furthermore, we will not host 3,000 person reggaeton concerts, so loud they disturbed Riverdale residents.
Maggie, I understand that you primary concern with any concession at Dyckman is the impact on your quality of life in your neighborhood. I think that is what we are all after for our neighborhoods. While some people appreciate being able to have a beer and a burger while watching the sun set over the Palisades, others may prefer a run along the river’s edge (unfortunately not an option between Dyckman and GWB given the location of the train tracks north of the bridge). With our proposal, we have attempted to meld these interest by turning what has become a blight on the river ecology and the community into an environmentally conscious and respectful facility providing access to the waterfront and serving good food at a fair price.
I would argue that your continuous and vehement opposition to our proposed operation should either have been voiced prior to Parks’ issuance of the RFP as a proposal to eliminate the concession altogether; or it should wait until after we have demonstrated an inability be a good neighbor. If you are simply after a traffic study, I would turn rather to the DOT. Crime prevention is the purview of the local precinct and community prevention groups. We will eagerly support either of these efforts, but we have little control over city streets and crime in the neighborhood. Please note that our plans set set aside space inside the property for parking, will work with local garages, and we will encourage use of convenient public transportation; other than that, we have limited power to change traffic patterns.
Maggie, when I asked you at the community board committee meeting if you had any experience in grey-water treatment systems, you told me that this was not your area of expertise. However, you failed to register that this is something that we are exploring. We are also exploring the the use of wind and solar power, installation of a salt marsh, composting and other measures that you might consider to have a positive impact on the community and the environment. Where we have the power to make a positive impact, we are doing are best to seize those opportunities.
Many people in the neighborhood have asked me and my partners when La Marina will come back, because that is what they loved about the neighborhood. Our plan is to open in May of 2009. We hope our business will be a showcase for the neighborhood and an example for how concessions should invigorate parkland and neighborhoods.
Henceforward, these discussions will have to take place in the forum of the community board; my group feels slandered by your unrelenting criticism, which is why I am taking the unusual step of addressing your comments on this website. If you have specific complaints, please e-mail me directly (I recall giving you my address at the meeting), or you can reach me through CB12.
Thank you,
Jerald Tenenbaum
Manhattan River Group, LLC
Comment by Jerald on September 9, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Mr. Tenenbaum’s comments sound positive, but perhaps he is not aware that residents here have opposed commercial development of the parkland in the area for over 10 years, through many hearings. Many warned against the previous restaurant before it was forced in over their heads. Their warnings were ignored.
Also, we would hope that his reference to “slander” is not an effort to silence criticism with a threat of lawsuits against citizen critics. Developers have a very unfortunate record in this regard, including in our neighborhood. The New York legislature found it necessary to pass a special law against such harassing lawsuits some years ago.
This neighborhood is not equipped to handle a commercial establishment at the end of Dyckman St. and Mr. Tenenbaum would be well advised to find a better site.
Comment by David on May 9, 2009 at 3:47 am