[Nanyika]

Everyone whom I've spoken to about this project hopes that it fails, and I completely agree. As I wrote earlier in this thread, a few years ago, this is a key portion of the only large green space that we have in the neighborhood. If you want to take a scenic walk along the river, this is where you go. Now developers want to bulldoze the trees, and put up in their place a suburban-type automobile-centric development — a five-story parking garage podium, topped by two towers, and a new street.

The claim about "extending" the Delaware bike and walking trail is hypocritical, since the trail already goes through this area, and has for some years. Apparently, the developers will merely rebuild and reconfigure the trail once construction is completed.

The claim that they will add more parkland that is accessible to the public is also false; this represents a large loss of green space. The total "public space" that the developers are claiming in order to gain zoning concessions includes the piers, when and if they are ever developed with buildings, where 31 percent will supposedly remain open to the public.

The city has maintained a beautiful but small public park to the north of this proposed development (Pier 53 / Washington Avenue Green), and it has wonderful plans for a park, new wetlands, and trails on and around the piers below it. But this privately owned parcel, plus the development on the former Foxwoods land just to the south, stand in the way of uniting any plans for one long linear plot.

I am all for developing Delaware Avenue as a truly urban pedestrian-friendly boulevard, and filling in the vast parking lots of the area with new housing and shops. But this suburban-type high-rise proposal, while causing more automobile congestion, will achieve nothing positive for the city. The best thing would be if community opposition would somehow defeat this proposal, so the Parks Department or another public entity could acquire it for parkland.