Thank you, Chair Burden.

The City Planning Commission once again faces a decision that will have a major impact on the landscape of this city. Just as the Hudson Yards constituted the last significant plot of developable land on the West Side of Manhattan, the former Con Ed sites east of First Avenue between 34th and 41st street constitute the last significant developable land on the East Side. And just as the zoning plan for the Hudson Yards became a lightning rod for controversy and community dissatisfaction, the developer’s plan for the Con Ed Waterside site has the potential to once again put private interests at odds with the wishes and needs of the community. The Planning Commission can go a long way toward preventing a counterproductive confrontation, however, simply by giving the community’s alternative plan the consideration it deserves in its Environmental Impact Statement for the Waterside site.

 

The 197c plan proposed by Community Board 6 addresses the need for any new development in the area to include a substantial percentage of affordable housing, key infrastructure improvements such as a new school, waterfront access, and continuous storefronts along First Avenue to stimulate commercial activity in the neighborhood. This plan represents exactly the type of informed, substantive, civic-minded participation in the development process that the Planning Commission should be doing everything in its power to encourage.

 

By contrast, Mr. Solow’s plan, in its current form, includes no affordable housing component, no significant community resources, and no genuinely public open space. In addition, it would drop a massive office tower and several other out-of-scale buildings into an essentially residential neighborhood without regard to the shadows those buildings will cast or the limitations they will impose on waterfront access. And yet, the community has not dug in its heels and refused to accept any sort of large-scale development in its neighborhood. Instead, it has offered a serious, well-reasoned alternative. The only responsible course is for the Planning Commission to consider all zoning plans for the site on their merits and move forward accordingly.

 

No one is looking to deny developers the opportunity to profit from investments they are willing to make on the East Side. We are simply asking that interests of developers not cast a shadow over the needs and aspirations of an entire community. The people of the East Side will have to live with the results of the Planning Commission’s decision for generations to come. The least the Commission can do is give the community’s plan the consideration it deserves.

Thank you.

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