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MAILBAG: A LETTER FOR THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE GARBAGE GARAGE.

by Amelia Bronsworth
As The SoHo Journal has reported, the Department of Sanitation's intent to build a massive garage to house garbage trucks on Canal and Washington Streets has been controversial, and fiercely opposed.  Here is a letter we received from the community group, Save Hudson Square, detailing the latest on their protest.  What do you think??
 
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
 
As most of you know, the City plans to build a 3-DISTRICT MEGA GARBAGE GARAGE, MAINTENANCE FACILITY and SALT PILE in our neighborhood. These facilities will stretch from Canal Street to three blocks north, and from Washington to West Streets.  If built, the GARAGE will be 427,250 sq ft and will rise 138 feet high.  It  is exempt from all set-back requirements.  This means that it will span practically from curb-to-curb, covering 2 full acres at 5x density!
 
But that’s not all...If the City wins.
  • The Sanitation Department will store 34,000 gallons of volatile fuel in underground tanks directly above the Holland Tunnel.
·      There will be more than 600+ daily garbage truck and Sanitation Dept. employee vehicle trips on local roads every single day.
·      The Salt shed will hold 4,000 tons of corrosive salt -- that’s 8 million pounds!
 
And during this time of profound budget short-falls, the City would spend more than $550 million to ruin our neighborhood.
 
THE ALTERNATIVE PLAN: REALIZE HUDSON RISE 
HUDSON RISE, a 2.5 acre rooftop park, is the responsible alternative and the solution we need.  Proposed by the community to be built on a human scale,  it would cost at least $200 million less to build.  HUDSON RISE would encompass a 2-District garbage facility to serve the West Village, Soho and Tribeca and incorporates lively public green space for residents and visitors that would improve safe access to beautiful Hudson River Park.
 
TAKING ACTION
Canal West Coalition, neighborhood business and residents, under the aegis of the Tribeca Community Association (TCA), has been actively opposing the City's proposed facility for two and one half years.
 
In early 2009, TCA and several of the neighborhood Condo Boards brought a class action suit against the City.  This action did two things: (1) the City responded with more than 1,000 pages of responses!  And, (2) after many meetings, the Friends of Hudson River Park have joined TCA in asking the City to reconsider this plan.  This is a very important development!
 
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The Sanitation Committee Steering Committee has been actively joined by many of our celebrity neighbors, and one, actor James Gandolfini, joined Committee leaders Richard Barrett and Phil Mouquinho at a recent meeting with Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler’s chief of staff, Caswell Holloway. Also attending were Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, and DSNY's Real Estate Director Dan Klein.
 
And vitally important was the participation A.J. Pietrantone, Executive Director of Friends of Hudson River Park. 
 
Although the City has long maintained that they “had to” build the proposed facility because of a settlement with the Hudson River Park Trust, Pietrantone stated at this meeting that The Friends were completely willing to extend the terms of the agreement over Gansevoort Pier to allow time enough to find a sensitive alternative to the overly dense DSNY facility for Spring Street as well as the proposed marine transfer station for the city's recyclables that the Bloomberg administration hopes to site on the pier after removing existing sanitation facilities.
 
For the first time, the City is interested in a thoughtful discussion of Hudson Rise, which would house two, instead of three, Sanitation districts’ trucks, and thus would be a much lower building with less impact; plus it incorporates a publicly accessible rooftop park that would offer safe access to Hudson River Park. 
 
The Committee recently presented the administration with five alternate sites for District 5’s garage; the city responded that three were feasible, and said it would extend by two weeks its search for alternative sites. 
 
PLEASE ACT NOW
WE HAVE JUST TWO WEEKS TO LET THE CITY KNOW THAT WE BELIEVE HUDSON RISE IS THE ONLY “FAIR SHARE” FACILITY THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED.
 
Our legal response is due on June 2nd and must include air quality data. TCA has retained an air quality consultant but has no cash on hand. Law suits and Air Quality consultants are expensive and those of us who are most severely affected must step up to support this critically important effort.  
 
PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TODAY
✦ Make your tax-deductible donations to Tribeca Community Association, 533 Canal St., NY NY 10013 today.
 
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD TODAY
✦ Call the office of Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler at 212-788-3191
✦ Call the office of Council Speaker Christine Quinn at 212-564-7757.  
Tell them that...
✦ you do not believe the DSNY facility and salt shed aimed at Spring Street is a Fair Share
✦ you do not want to live near an 8 million pound salt shed whose safety cannot be guaranteed 
✦ Hudson Square has the second worst ratio of green space to residents in NYC...and that Hudson Rise begins to address that inequity
✦ the Hudson Riverfront is a national treasure that they should not foul...
and last, remind them that...
✦ YOU VOTE.

  

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