By Albert Amateau
Hudson Park Trust excludes public
West Side Assemblymembers have asked an Assembly committee to hear their complaints that the Hudson River Park Trust has been excluding the public from participating in important decisions on the 4.5-mile Hudson River Park between Chambers and 59th Sts.
The Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions will hear the complaints at 10:30 a.m. Wed. Dec. 17 in the 19th floor hearing room at 250 Broadway.
Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, along with fellow members Deborah Glick and Scott Stringer, requested the hearing. Gottfried said last week he believes the Trust, the state-city agency building the park, has been violating the intent of the Hudson River Park Act by neglecting public discussion of park decisions.
“In the early days of the Trust there were many public meetings to help develop plans and guidelines for the park,” said Gottfried, a co-author of the 1998 Hudson River Park Act that created the Trust. “But in the last few years there has been little if any public notice and input. The skating rink was only the latest example of that neglect,” said Gottfried, referring to the proposal, dropped after a public outcry, to build an ice rink in the upland park designated for lawns and gardens near Pier 40.
Bringing the Concorde to a barge at the Intrepid Space-Sea-Air Museum at Pier 86 last month should also have been a subject of public discussion, he added. “I assumed that the Concorde was to be on the deck of the Intrepid,” said Gottfried. “Parking a barge for a land-based plane like the Concorde is in my opinion an improper taking of water in the park jurisdiction for an inappropriate use,” he reasoned.
“Whether it was a good idea or a bad one, there should have been public notice and consultation.” Gottfried added.
“I’ve also been unhappy with the Trust’s relationship with Chelsea Piers Management,” said Gottfried. “Chelsea Piers has gotten away with a lot of things that the Trust should not have allowed to happen. The Target store on a barge at Pier 62 in the Chelsea Piers complex last November was improper and a clear violation of the law. Luckily no one has followed it as a precedent this year,” he said.
Gottfried also said that Chelsea Piers’ attempt three years ago to “park a so-called jazz boat at Pier 62” was overstepping the law. “It didn’t happen, but no thanks to H.R.P.T.; they should have said ‘no’ from the start,” Gottfried said.
The Trust has indicated it would appear at the Dec. 17 hearing, according to the office of Assemblymember Richard Brodsky, of the 92nd Assembly District in Westchester, head of the Assembly’s Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee.
