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Testimony of State Senator Liz Krueger Before the New York State Public Service Commission Regarding
the Supplemental Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) for the Con Edison Waterside Site June 19, 2003 My name
is Liz Krueger and I am the State Senator for the district in which the Con
Edison Waterside site is situated.
The residents of this neighborhood are faced with a potential
development that is unprecedented in its magnitude and range of possible
impacts on the community. As I
emphasized in my testimony last September, it is imperative that you take the
legitimate concerns of my constituents into account when evaluating the sale
of this land. Precisely for this reason, I am
deeply troubled by the Public Service Commission’s decision to hold this
hearing today, despite requests by Community Board 6 and city, state and
federal elected officials to postpone the hearing in order to provide a
reasonable amount of time to review the lengthy Supplemental Draft Generic
Environmental Impact Statement. One
month is simply not enough time to digest this complex document. By holding the hearing today, you are
committing a disservice to both this project and this community by excluding
many of the most vital participants of this process. Because Community Boards are only
authorized to act by resolutions passed by the full board, one month, even
two months, is not enough time for the members of Community Board 6 to read
the document, draft resolutions, hold committee meetings, and convene an
emergency full board meeting. I
should remind you that Community Boards were created by the New York City
Charter, and one of their principle mandates is to participate in the
land-use planning process. Community
Board 6’s land-use committee has a professional planner and architect among
its very experienced and knowledgeable members. More importantly, the members of this committee and the full
board have a unique understanding of this neighborhood, and their
participation should be embraced. In
addition, there are civic groups and concerned area residents that offered
valuable input in September’s hearing, who do not have time to evaluate this
new document and present testimony today.
I therefore request that you hold another set of hearings regarding
this document in late September. That said, I want to offer my
preliminary comments, which will be expanded and submitted to the PSC before
the July 15 deadline. I was pleased
that you decided to incorporate other major projects, such as the Second
Avenue Subway construction, FDR Drive rehabilitation, and a potential UN
building on Robert Moses Playground, while expanding the scope of your
traffic analysis. However, I have
several overarching concerns regarding the Supplemental EIS analysis of these
issues, which I feel is often inadequate, and at times, disingenuous. In many instances, it seems as
though the Supplemental EIS analysis of these other projects only functions
to deflect responsibility and to obscure the actual impacts of the Waterside
development. In reality, these
separate projects will have aggregate impacts on the surrounding
neighborhoods. Furthermore, when the
document does acknowledge additional impacts, it consistently asserts that
the same mitigation proposals suggested in the first EIS, many of which did
not appear adequate at the time, would still address these exacerbated
problems. Allow me to draw attention
to some glaring examples: Open
Space
It has been established that the
neighborhood surrounding Waterside is already dramatically underserved in
terms of open space. Since the first
DGEIS was published, we have learned that construction of the new UN building
at Robert Moses Playground, as well as a Second Avenue Subway shaft site in
St. Vartan’s Park, could reduce the amount of available public open space
even more. While the Supplemental
DGEIS acknowledges this daunting possibility, it argues that the 3 acres of
new open space provided in the proposed development plans would therefore
constitute a greater percentage of total open space in the study area,
implying that area residents should be all the more grateful. It is adding insult to injury to
state that the open space to be created by FSM represents an improvement
because the existing amount of open space may be diminished. I would hope that a significant
deterioration of open space resources in the neighborhood would compel FSM to
create more open space, both on and off their development site. This would enhance the quality of life for
both existing and new residents. Shadows
and Visual Resources
The
Supplemental DGEIS makes the case that the since the new UN building would
also cast shadows onto Tudor City Park and block views of the Secretariat
from several vantage points, the impacts of the proposed Waterside
development are consequently diminished.
Once again, I consider this kind of reasoning to be disingenuous and
inadequate. The actual shadow and
siteline impacts of the Waterside development would be even worse when considered in tandem with new UN
building, and to shift the blame onto another building is to deflect
responsibility and avoid an examination of the cumulative effect of the
combined projects on the community.
What the neighborhood truly faces is significant amounts of shading in
scarce open space, caused by several new buildings. Traffic
Since the Supplemental EIS incorporates the anticipated impacts of the extraordinarily disruptive Second Avenue Subway construction while extending the traffic impact analysis area, I was not surprised that it discovered the first EIS had underestimated the traffic volumes and failed to identify several impacted locations. I was, however, surprised that the EIS states that the additional impacts could be mitigated via the same set of measures proposed in the first EIS. These generic measures, which the
developer has no control over, include signal phasing, pavement markings, and
enforcement of traffic and parking regulations. As I said last September, these measures will not mitigate the
traffic caused by a development of this size and should not be accepted by
the PSC, especially considering the findings of the Supplemental
document. Considering the inadequacy
of these proposals, and the fact that many intersections are conceded to be
unmitigatable, the traffic analysis continues to raise serious issues with the
proposed size of the project. This project represents an
opportunity for enlightened development that provides our community with
housing, open space, and access to the waterfront. With these opportunities there is the potential to make costly mistakes. Overdevelopment runs the risk of
negatively impacting traffic, open space, and school capacity, while casting
shadows and aesthetically disrupting our visual resources. Once again, I ask the PSC not to proceed
until Community Board 6 has an opportunity to weigh in, and to eventually
attach conditions to the disposition of this land that protects the community
from overdevelopment. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify here today. |
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