FISCAL CRISIS GUTS CITY PARK PLANS
By RICH CALDER/May 26, 2009
Only two years ago, Mayor Bloomberg was hailed as a city green space champion after announcing a $386 million plan with fancy renderings to redo eight downtrodden parks through his sweeping PlaNYC initiative. But with the city in fiscal crisis, the mayor's new spending plan cuts funding in half for five of them.
Projects to revive Manhattan's Fort Washington Park, Dreier-Offerman Park in Brooklyn, Soundview Park in the Bronx and Highland and Rockaway parks in Queens have been gutted from a combined $206 million in 2007 to $102.9 million, city documents show. At Dreier-Offerman near Coney Island, a $40 million plan to reclaim the park from the homeless and junkies by adding new athletic fields and restoring wetlands was cut to $19 million. ....while a $50 million plan to restore Ridgewood Reservoir and bring new athletic fields to Highland Park fell to $19.8 million. In fact, the Parks Department's five-year capital plan for projects through fiscal 2013 was cut by $338 million -- or 14 percent -- compared to mayor's preliminary budget in January, the city's Independent Budget Office says. And the city is in danger of becoming even less green......a May 19 City Council study predicts "it is unlikely that without significant staff increases, the Parks Department will be able to complete anywhere near [its] goal" ......A Parks official speaking on condition of anonymity said....the city has a "bad" habit of commissioning renderings for park projects "it knows it'll never be able to fully fund" just to grab a quick headline "and boost the mayor's popularity."
The mayor through PlaNYC also pledged to convert 290 schoolyards into community parks so every New Yorker would be within a 10-minute walk of a playground by 2030. But this plan was also hit hard by cuts, the council study says....Of the 221 yet to be built, funding has been slashed by $13.3 million, from $77.2 million to $63.9 million. Geoffrey Croft of the watchdog group New York City Park Advocates called the department's capital program a "disaster, especially PlaNYC." He said the city continues "to make promises it knows it can't deliver on some projects while spending like drunken sailors on others."
The rest of the story is athttp://www.nypost.com/seven/05262009/news/regionalnews/fiscal_crisis_guts_city_park_plans_170996.htm
The mayor through PlaNYC also pledged to convert 290 schoolyards into community parks so every New Yorker would be within a 10-minute walk of a playground by 2030. But this plan was also hit hard by cuts, the council study says....Of the 221 yet to be built, funding has been slashed by $13.3 million, from $77.2 million to $63.9 million. Geoffrey Croft of the watchdog group New York City Park Advocates called the department's capital program a "disaster, especially PlaNYC." He said the city continues "to make promises it knows it can't deliver on some projects while spending like drunken sailors on others."
The rest of the story is athttp://www.nypost.com/seven/05262009/news/regionalnews/fiscal_crisis_guts_city_park_plans_170996.htm
