COMMUNITY'S SOLUTION TO GARBAGE GARAGE: REALIZE HUDSON SQUARE.

 

The lower west side community has been actively opposing a DSNY plan to construct a 3-district sanitation garage and maintenance facility on Spring and Washington Streets.  The facility, which will rise 138' including mechanicals, will be the tallest building in the area, and true to form, the City has exempted itself from setback requirements and other standard building codes, ensuring that the area, including parts of the Hudson River Park, will be cast in shadow for large parts of every day.

 

Although the DSNY-conducted FEIS generally implies that the mega-garage will enhance the neighborhood, the truth is far bleaker: it will add almost 600 vehicle trips daily to an area that is already over-run with Holland Tunnel traffic, and while DSNY states that these additional vehicles won't deteriorate air quality "substantially," the City has been under Federal order for a decade to improve air quality in that part of town.

 

While the City has gone to great lengths to talk about their new green fleet of garbage trucks, the City has purchased just three hybrid collection trucks out of a fleet of 2,196 trucks!  Further, not all those "vehicle trips" through the local streets will be trucks, the City will provide free parking to Sanitation Department employees, despite Mayor Bloomberg's aggressive efforts to get private cars off the streets of Manhattan.  In a letter dated November 19, 2008, Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler promised to reduce the number of employee parking spaces by 50%, from 74 to 37.  However, the facility design approved by the New York City Design Commission on September 14, 2009 -—nearly a year later— reflected no reduction in parking spaces.

 

While the City argues that a consolidated 3-district facility is more efficient and will save money, in fact, this mega-facility will be the most expensive ever built in New York City at a half billion dollars.  Two aspects of the City's plan contributed to this extraordinary ticket price:  first, the City is buying air rights from UPS, whose distribution facility is currently located on the site (with trucks parked all around the currect building).  The City's plan is to pay 2007 prices in 2010 -- more than three times the going rate.  Second, in addition to this outrageous over-payment that taxpayers will be repaying for decades, the City will build a brand new distribution facility for UPS on the first floor of the new sanitation facilty--at the City's expense.

 

Further imperiling the local community, as well as the adjacent Canal and Hudson River Parks is the City plan to add a 7,000 ton road salt shed across Canal Street from the garage that will rise more than 70' high.  Airborne salt will corrode area buildings, and has been shown to affect birds' ability to navigate, to kill plantings, and cause respiratory ailments in children and the elderly.  Worse, the site is a Federal Flood Plain, which has been, until now, a de facto reason not to site a road salt shed in a particular location.  If the Sierra Club's predictions of a period of intense hurricanes in the region produce the tidal surges that Executive Director Carl Pope claimed in a joint appearance with Mayor Bloomberg on Charlie Rose (April 22, 2009), there will be more than property damage: receding water will drag 7,000 tons of toxic road salt into the Hudson River.

 

The City is apparently aware of the opposition that the Port Authority is likely to raise to siting a salt shed right next to their Holland Tunnel ventilation tower (which, of course, pulls clean air into the tunnel as rapidly as it blows car exhaust out): renderings shown to the Port Authority show truck access and loading via Canal Street, which renderings shown to the community show the same access and loading in an enclosed driveway between the ventilation tower and the shed.

 

The Community has proposed a two-district facility in the same location.  Called Hudson Rise, it would save the city nearly $40 million, including the cost of siting and building the third district elsewhere.  Importantly, it would add 2.5 acres of a green space to the area, which has the second lowest green space to residents ratio in the entire city.  The Friends of Hudson River Park has supported the plan, despite delays Hudson Rise could cause to their own park development plans because, as Executive Director A.J. Pietrantone stated in a letter to supporters on September 21, 2009, the plan better addresses community concerns and "enhances Hudson River Park in the process."