New York, NY —
All you have to do is look at all the cranes swinging over the city and you know we're in a major building boom. And the Bronx is getting its share. But activists and residents are afraid that the city's mega development projects will have an adverse impact on their quality of life, and on the environment. WNYC's Elaine Rivera reports:
REPORTER: The Bronx is booming. Some major developments include a new $800 million Yankee stadium. The overhaul of the Bronx terminal market which will be turned into a major retail center. The construction of waterfront parks.
But Bronx environmentalists across the borough fear that the growth is coming at a cost. They laud Mayor Michael Bloomberg's sustainability plan which calls for lowering the city's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. However, they say the plan's rhetoric is different from the reality of big development projects.
Joyce Hogi, a founder of the ad hoc community group Save Our Parks who lives near Yankee stadium, points to the destruction of hundreds of trees in their prime and 22 acres of parkland that have already been taken away to make way for the new stadium.
HOGI: This was the worst kind of a project for a neighborhood of our ilk that it had a high asthma rate and you're taking down 400 trees that were needed there and you're taking away recreational facilities from that are need in an areas where it's so lacking - people were so willing to sacrifice everything just to vote for this project - it was rah, rah Yankees
REPORTER: City officials counter that the parkland will be replaced with more parks and state-of-the-art recreational facilities. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says this is what will eventually come to Hogi's neighborhood:
BENEPE: For example, Yankee stadium once we open the new Yankee stadium and tear down the old one and that entire site will be replaced by a public park with three baseball fields on it...
Bronx residents are skeptical. They say since the days of Robert Moses they have been hit harder than other boroughs when it comes to development projects that have hurt neighborhoods. In the 1940s, Moses ignored a massive campaign to halt the Cross Bronx Expressway. Instead, he tore down homes in vibrant communities in the heart of the South Bronx to build the highway - now considered one of his biggest failures.
At a recent event, Bronx borough President Adolfo Carrion addressed the controversial legacy of the late developer Robert Moses.
CARRION: Robert Moses was a very controversial figure because he was bullish on growth and planning and growing the city - we are not without controversy in the Bronx as you heard from some of the hissing shared with us tonight because of some of the large initiatives that we've undertaken like Yankee Stadium accepting the filtration plant with some resistance but the ability to then leverage those large developments and large initiatives into improvements in the neighborhoods...
REPORTER: Carrion acknowledges the resistance big development brings but he says there must be trade-offs. One such trade-off is the one billion dollar Croton filtration plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park which, despite strong community opposition, was placed in the Bronx. But because of the water treatment plant, the borough received $200 million to improve and increase parkland, officials say. And parks commissioner Benepe says millions more will be spent on planting thousands of trees, creating more waterfront parks, esplanades and bike paths.
BENEPE: To really want to put people's fears at rest, over the next five years you'll see the biggest improvement and enhancement of parks and green space really in the history of the Bronx.
REPORTER: But Majora Carter, founder of the enivronmental justice group Sustainable South Bronx, argues that the Bronx pays a huge price for those parks- unsitely facilities plopped in their community that, in order to be built and sustained, can be damaging to the environment.
CARTER: In order for the Bronx to get anything good, you have to rip something up in it - that - we shouldn't be expecting that just because we happen to be the poorest borough
REPORTER: And I.C. Levenberg-Engel, president of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, says the city should be doing everything possible to preserve natural parks and wetlands rather then take them away to replace them in the future.
LEVENBERG-ENGEL: A real natural wet land is never equal to an artificial wetland or a real natural park is not equal to a park or a green roof or a playground on top of a parking lot. It's quite obvious they're not pulling the wool over anybody's eyes - we know that is not going to be an equal exchange
REPORTER: Activists say the Bronx is particularly vulnerable to unpopular projects because of the available land space and the flexibility in zoning regulations there.
They plan to challenge another controversial facility that the city wants to build on a strip of industrial waterfront in Hunts Point - a 2,000 bed jail. Carter and other community group representatives say here is a chance for city officials to practice what they preach - reclaim prime waterfront property with breathtaking views for an industrial park or a clean technology facility that will bring jobs.
CARTER: The fact that you have this 28-acre site that has both barge and rail access if that was developed as an industrial facility that depended on barge and rail that immediately would take trucks off the road - trucks add to our pollution rates to the asthma rate and the fact the city is going to build a jail here is utterly irresponsible.
REPORTER: A Department of Corrections spokesman says they have proposed an environmental impact study. For now, the city still hopes to construct the jail there. For WNYC, I'm Elaine Rivera