Meeting Reminder

Please note the location correction. Meeting is taking place at the Redeemer Lutheran School not the church.

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Yet Another Community Input Meeting

In the 10 years since we've begun this process, I'm going to guess that this is at least the 10th community input meeting with the Department of Parks and Recreation. Please share this with all interested parties as we need to make certain that Capital Projects isn't planning any surprises:

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Community Listening Sessions

From NYC H2O:

Ridgewood Reservoir

Community Meetings

Tuesday May 23 @ 7pm: PS 68, 5909 St Felix Ave, Glendale

Thursday June 1 @ 7pm: North Brooklyn YMCA, 570 Jamaica Ave, Brooklyn

Join us for a community listening session to envision an exciting new future for Highland Park's historic Ridgewood Reservoir. NYC H2O and its collaborating organizations are actively seeking input from community members to discuss future possibilities as well as address present challenges around the Reservoir. NYC Parks has worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to reclassify the Ridgewood Reservoir to Class A "Low Hazard," a new designation that allows it to be preserved as a natural and cultural treasure for the community.

These meetings are being organized by NYC H2O with the following community organizations: Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation; East New York Farms; North Brooklyn YMCA; Highland Park Ridgewood Reservoir Association; Community Board 5 Queens and Community Board 5 Brooklyn; 75th and 104th Precincts; Queens Borough President’s Office; Brooklyn Borough President's Office; Brooklyn Bird Club; Queens County Bird Club; NYC Audubon, along with New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

RSVP for 5/23 at 7pm at PS 68

RSVP for 6/1 at 7pm at N Brooklyn YMCA


NYC H2O
(646) 926-0368
info@nych2o.org
nych2o.org


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Community Board Meeting

From Queens Community Board 5 District Manager:

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DATE: February 21, 2017

ATTN: Parks Services Committee Members and Guests

FROM: Gary Giordano, District Manager
           Community Board 5 Queens
           61-23 Myrtle Avenue
           Glendale, NY 11385

RE:  AGENDA & Meeting Notice for PARKS Services Committee Meeting at 7:30 PM on THURSDAY, MARCH 2nd, 2017 in Board 5 Office on Myrtle Avenue

Attached please find a copy of the meeting notice and agenda for the upcoming Parks Services Committee Meeting, that is scheduled to begin at 7:30pm on THURSDAY, MARCH 2nd, in the Board 5 office. If you haven’t already received a copy, also attached is a copy of the Ridgewood Reservoir Nomination to the State & National Historic Registers, as prepared by NYC H2O.

If you cannot attend this meeting, please either call the Board 5 office at (718) 366-1834, or reply via email. A quorum is required in order to vote at this committee meeting.

All are welcome to attend.

Thank you for your cooperation.
Gary

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Community Input Meeting

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Highland Park - Ridgewood Reservoir Community Meeting

The following event is organized and sponsored by NYC H2O.

Highland Park - Ridgewood Reservoir Community Meeting

Tuesday April 19 at 7pm

PS 89, 265 Warwick Street, Brooklyn

Child care will be provided (sign up here)

Please join us on Tuesday April 19th. We look forward to your participation in the envisioning of an exciting new future for Highland Park's historic Ridgewood Reservoir. NYC H2O and its collaborating organizations are actively seeking input from community members to discuss future possibilities as well as present challenges around the Reservoir. The currently underutilized Reservoir has the potential to become a center for nature that will contribute to community involvement for years to come.

NYC H2O is a water ecology organization that provides school groups with free field trips to parks and reservoirs. Over the last two years it has taken over 800 students to the Ridgewood Reservoir. This second listening meeting is being organized with the following community organizations: Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, Arts East NY, East NY Farms, North Brooklyn YMCA, Highland Park Ridgewood Reservoir Association, Community Board 5 Brooklyn, Community Board 4 Brooklyn, Community Board 5 Queens, the Brooklyn Borough President's Office, and the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Let's come together to discuss a unique ecological resource for Brooklyn and Queens local residents. Let's create better and safer access to the Reservoir to help realize its full potential as a natural asset to the many communities that use Highland Park.

If you haven't already participated in our Highland Park - Ridgewood Reservoir survey please click here to do so.

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Important Public Meeting

From the Queens Chronicle:

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Ridgewood Reservoir meeting on June 30, 2014
State DEC to discuss dam decommissioning
Thursday, June 26, 2014 10:30 am

Plans for the decommissioning of dams at Highland Park’s Ridgewood Reservoir will be discussed at a community meeting on Monday, June 30 at St. Pancras School in Ridgewood.

The meeting will be hosted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

As part of the decommissioning process, the state is requiring the city to build culverts through the walls of the old water basins as a hedge against having them flood and possibly fail during a hurricane or a major storm.

Area residents have expressed reservations about the plan, particularly its potential impact on local flooding and the possibility that vandals or other people might use the structures to congregate.

St. Pancras School is at 68-20 Myrtle Ave. The entrance is on 68th Street.

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Public Meeting

CB5 to hold public meeting on Ridgewood Reservoir proposals

The Parks Services Committee of Community Board 5 will host a meeting with representatives of the Department of Parks and Recreation, who will present the Proposed Master Plan for the Ridgewood Reservoir.

The meeting will take place on Thursday, June 27, at 7:30 p.m. in Pfeiffer Hall at St. Pancras School, 68-20 Myrtle Avenue, in Ridgewood. Enter the hall through the parking lot on the east side of 68th Street between Myrtle and Cooper avenues.

The Ridgewood Reservoir is now part of Highland Park. It is bordered by Cypress Avenue and the Jackie Robinson Parkway on the north, Highland Boulevard and Highland Park on the south, and Vermont Place on the west.

The plan reportedly contains three options for the future of the reservoir. The reservoir is currently closed for a Phase I capital project that will provide new lighting and fencing around the perimeter, resurfacing of a pathway, and construction of a handicap access ramp on Vermont Place.

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Since June 24, 2007, when the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation held their first community "listening session", they have been attempting to destroy the natural habitats that have evolved in the reservoirs three basins by any means. If you have followed this blog for 6 years, you know that each time that the city doesn't get the answers that they like, they try a different tactic. If you care about the Ridgewood Reservoir and don't want to see the parks department waste millions of taxpayers dollars on the destruction of an important natural space, please attend the public meeting on June 27th.

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Community Board Meeting

Below is the agenda for the next meeting of Queens Community Board 5. Click to enlarge:

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Community Board Meeting

Below is the agenda for the next meeting of Queens Community Board 5. Click to enlarge:

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Parks Department Final Design

After nearly 2 years of community input, budget cuts and political wrangling, the Department of Parks & Recreation has submitted a final "Phase 1" design plan for the Ridgewood Reservoir to the Design Commission. Phase 1 only calls for improvements to the lighting and pathways surrounding the reservoir basins. It is clear from viewing the Powerpoint slideshow and listening to reaction from Queens Community Board 5 that the parks department pretty much ignored most of the community's input. I've converted the slideshow to a PDF file that can be downloaded here.

There are several areas of contention regarding the design, the most obvious being the height of the perimeter fences.

Since the start of the input process the parks department, namely Queens Commissioner Lewandowski and Park Administrator Kuha, have claimed that safety was their primary concern. Many of us commend them on their efforts to have openings in the existing 7' high chainlink fence repaired regularly and helping to increase patrols in the area. Homeless encampments in the basins, makeshift paintball areas and other illegal activities have been eliminated in the forested wetlands within the basins. In June, when the organization "World Science Festival" requested permission to host a bioblitz in the basins it was denied on grounds that it was too dangerous for people to scale down the basin embankments or walk around in the interiors. So why has Commission Lewandowski and Ms. Kuha given approval to a design that calls for removing the 7' high fence and replacing it with a 4' high fence? Was all their talk about safety just designed to keep people away from the reservoirs and create a negative image of the area? I suppose if you want to destroy "unique natural habitats" without any opposition the first thing you would want to do is make people think that it is a danger to the public. Does the parks department actually believe that people aren't going to jump over the fence to access the "dangerous" basins? And if anyone has difficulty climbing the fence, the proposed lighting design has the lampposts inline with the fences making for a convenient stepladder. Besides the obvious negative impact this will have on basins 1 and 3, there have been dozens of news articles posted over the decades about people drowning in the reservoir (basin 2 is a lake).

In Prospect Park an area call the Ravine was restored over an 8 year period. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on plantings, erosion control and other landscape repairs & improvements. When it was opened to the public, a 4' fence had been installed to prevent people from destroying the restored forest and waterway. Here is what happened; Fences were (and continue to be) climbed over or broken outright. In less than a year, much of the beautiful restoration was reversed. Understory plantings have been destroyed, the forest floor is badly eroded, compacted trails crisscross much of the forest, there are homeless encampments, parties, people having sex and the tons of trash. You can view some images of the destruction here. If Commissioner Lewandowski goes ahead with the plan for a low fence, she can expect the same or worse, since it is difficult for law enforcement to patrol the basin interiors.

There are also issues with the lighting plan. The design calls for nearly tripling the number of lampposts surrounding the basins. Another safety issue? Not likely as Highland Park and Ridgewood Reservoir have very low crime. In fact, according to NYPD statistics, it is much safer than Prospect Park. I don't think any other city park has lighting spaced so close. Another waste of money is the fact that the design calls for placing the lighting on the inside of the path and, rather than burying a single electrical line along the inside of the path, running it along the outside edge, with each lighting fixture then needing to have a separate lead splitting off from the outside of the path. Vincent Arcuri, the president of Queens Community Board 5, is a licensed electrician and pointed out this waste of money. Again, community voices were ignored.

The access path between basins 1 and 2 will not be available for public use. The path between basins 2 and 3, however, will be cleaned up and observation points created. This pathway will only be opened during specific hours and secured behind a short length of 7' fencing. There will be some seating added here. No additional seating or exercise stations (requested by the community) will be installed around the perimeter of the basins. Another design issue that was contested by the community board was the removal of a flight of stairs and access at the northeast corner of basin 1 near the Jackie Robinson Parkway service road. In this design feature anyone coming to the park from the area of Cypress Avenue and Cypress Hills Street wouldn't have an access point. It was in this area that many suggested Access-a-Ride vehicles or school buses pick-ups and drop offs. The department of parks wants, instead, to use this area only as an electronic card access point only for NYPD and park maintenance vehicles.

It is unclear to me whether the Department of Parks & Recreation had a design already in mind when they began the process of public input or if the parks commissioner just overruled any designs that included community recommendations. Either way, there is little question that the democratic process for this project has been seriously compromised. The community boards are preparing a joint statement and letter to the City Comptroller which I will post here shortly.



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Parks Department Presentation

On March 16, 2009, the Department of Parks & Recreation held the first of its second round of community meetings regarding the future of Ridgewood Reservoir. Queens Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski kindly provided us with a copy of the presentation. As you step through the slides pay special attention to the site hydrology, site ecology and survey results.



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The Bishop, Parks & Corruption

"Queens Crap" just posted a stunning report on the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation's "interesting" relationship with the East Brooklyn Congregation's head bishop. Many people have wondered why this allegedly honest man did a complete 180 degree shift from his original position on not developing the reservoirs to cutting down the forest. Now we know:

"When the city sells you lots o'land for $1 (upon which you construct vast quantities of Brooklyn Crap) and then they call in a favor, you do what they ask, otherwise, you might get cut off..."

Read the entire exposé here.

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Ridgewood Reservoir hearing in Oak Ridge

The following was posted in the Queens Chronicle:

The final public hearing for plans to develop Ridgewood Reservoir has been scheduled for June 30 at Oak Ridge in Forest Park.

The Parks Department will present three development plans: preserving the site as a natural habitat; filling in the reservoir basins and replacing them with baseball and soccer fields; and a hybrid plan in which only one of three basins, the largest one, would be converted into a recreational sporting area.

The plans have been called into question in recent weeks after Parks officials cut funding for the project from $48.8 million to $19.8 million.

“If the reduction in funding is not restored or supplemented by another funding source, a new phasing strategy will be implemented,” Parks officials said in a statement.

Plans to raze the reservoir site and replace it with ballfields have sparked an ongoing battle between the city and preservationists.

Deactivated in 1989, the site has become a natural haven for plants, turtles, fish, frogs and more than 137 bird species — including eight rare species on the National Audubon Society’s “Watch List.”

The meeting is opened to the general public.

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Final Listening Session

This note from the parks department just arrived:

Parks is pleased to announce a fourth community meeting to discuss community ideas and concerns for the Ridgewood Reservoir PlaNYC Project. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 30th at 7:00PM at Oak Ridge in Forest Park.

The meeting is intended to summarize what we have learned at the previous meetings, and to relay the results of the paper surveys that have been distributed over the past weeks.

Here is a map to Oak Ridge:


View Oak Ridge in a larger map

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Meeting & Presentation

Join us this Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 7:00pm for a slide presentation of the wildlife of the Ridgewood Reservoir. Nature photographer, Steve Nanz, will share his photographs of the birds, insects and other animal life that he has observed at the reservoir.

The meeting is free and opened to the public. Refreshments will be served.

The show will be followed by our regular monthly meeting.

Highland Park/Ridgewood Reservoir Alliance
Ridgewood Democratic Club
6070 Putnam Street


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Directions to The Ridgewood Democratic Club at 6070 Putnam Street. The
entrance is the first door on Stier Place

From Brooklyn:
Take Eastern Parkway until it ends at Bushwick Avenue.
Make a right turn onto Bushwick Avenue and move to the left lane.
Bear left onto the Jackie Robinson Parkway (formerly Interboro)
Exit at Cypress Hills Street (2nd exit)
At the top of the exit, make a left onto Cyrpress Hills Street
At the bottom of the hill make a left onto Cooper Avenue
Make a right at the 5th block (62nd Street)
62nd street ends in 2 blocks at Myrtle Ave
Make a left turn onto Myrtle and the make a right turn (about 50 feet) onto Fresh Pond Road (just at the end of the underpass; Fresh Pond starts at Myrtle and there is a carpet store on the right)
About 1/4 mile, 1 block after the M train station, Putnam Street is on the left.
It’s one block after the train station

From Manhattan:
Take the LIE
Exit to The Grand Central Parkway East (towards LI)
Stay in the right lane and exit onto the Jackie Robinson Parkway (formerly
Interboro)
Exit at Cypress Hills Street
At the top of the exit, make a right onto Cypress Hills Street
At the bottom of the hill make a left onto Cooper Avenue
Make a right at the 5th block (62nd Street)
62nd street ends in 2 blocks at Myrtle Ave
Make a left turn onto Myrtle and the make a right turn (about 50 feet) onto Fresh Pond Road (just at the end of the underpass; Fresh Pond starts at Myrtle and there is a carpet store on the right)
About 1/4 mile, 1 block after the M train station, Putnam Street is on the left.
It’s one block after the train station

From The Bronx:
Take the Triborough to the Grand Central Parkway and follow directions above
Parking can be sometimes be difficult in the area

By Subway:
Take the M train to the Fresh Pond Station or the L train to Myrtle Avenue and
then go upstairs and take the M to the Fresh Pond Station
Walk one block to Putnam and then left onto Putnam.

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Upcoming Event

We just received the following information about a great, free event coming up. I highly recommend anyone interested in community activism (and not just regarding Ridgewood Reservoir) to attend.

Register now for the 2009 Livable Neighborhoods Training

More information here



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Parks Department Community Meeting

On March 30th, the Department of Parks & Recreation held the second of a new round of community meetings. This meeting was billed as a "working meeting" to collect community input for the second phase of the Ridgewood Reservoir PlaNYC 2030 capital project to develop the reservoir property. There wasn't anything new or unique about this team-oriented session, in fact, it was nearly identical to the 2007 "Listening Sessions".

As community leaders and residents entered the cafeteria of IS 302 in Ridgewood, a name badge and team color was assigned each person. Like the 2007 meetings, a large topographic map of the Ridgewood Reservoir basins covered each of the color-coded team tables. We were also supplied stencil cut-outs of various active recreational facilities, i.e., baseball fields, track fields, football fields, etc. Each table had a DoPR facilitator who steered the "creative" process. The ultimate goal of each team was to create their vision of a developed reservoir. After a pre-determined amount of time, a representative from each team would present their design to the room.

The members of the team in which I participated, which included the Latin American Soccer Association, made it clear from the start that we were not interested in placing active recreational facilities within the basins. By the end of the event, it was certain that the majority of the people participating felt the same way. Six out of eight teams were opposed to destroying the unique habitats within the basins and preferred to see it used for environmental education and passive recreation. A protected nature sanctuary was clearly what most people had in mind. A team dominated by members of the Bushwick Baseball Associated placed fields in basin 3. However, their spokesperson also said that if the department of parks fixed up and maintained the current fields in Highland Park, it would not be necessary to build within the reservoir. This begged the question, if fields were built in the basins, would they ultimately face the same lack of maintenance and neglect as the current fields?

Many people I spoke with after the session came away with the impression that the community's desires and opinions did not matter. Is the outcome of this process a foregone conclusion? A lot of money has already been spent organizing the listening sessions for 2007 and, now, 2009. Moneys have also been paid to the design team to survey park patrons at Highland Park and the Ridgewood Reservoir. Each time the results were the same - people do not want to destroy the natural habitats they want Highland Park fixed up and the reservoirs kept as a nature preserve. However, even with that information in hand, the first plan submitted to the City Comptroller (which was rejected) called for filling in the largest basin with 27,000 large truckloads of fill. Does the majority opinion no longer count in New York City? Where is the democratic process? Why is it that the vast majority of the community called for preservation, the two community boards voted unanimously for preservation, yet the design team did exactly the opposite?

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DoPR March 16th Meeting Summary

The Department of Parks & Recreation has responded to City Comptroller Thompson's demand to create three new plans for Ridgewood Reservoir by organizing a new round of community input sessions. I was contacted by parks with the dates; March 16th, March 30th, May 2nd.

Here is a summary of the March 16th meeting, which was held in the parks department's Oak Ridge offices. The meeting was described as being the introduction of Phase 1 of the project which would only address safety and accessibility issues around the perimeter of the reservoir basins. The 7 million dollars being released by the comptroller would not be used for any work within the basins.

Over 100 residents and community leaders attended. Their requisite PowerPoint slide presentation contained the historical information that has been used for all meetings since June 2007. There wasn't anything new added. Members of the design team presented different sections of the slideshow. One surprise was the section entitled "Topography and Ecology". Chris Syrett from the design team reviewed the results of the Draft Ecological Assessment as performed by Round Mountain Ecological, LLC. He couldn't have been more forthcoming with the data and reiterated what we posted on the blog long ago - the reservoir site represents "unique and important habitats that are rare in NYC".

There was a small degree of antagonism from the assembled audience towards the design team in that they either didn't trust the Department of Parks & Recreation's level of honesty with regard to Phase 1 of the project and/or that the city is not willing to spend any of the money on Highland Park.

It seemed clear that the purpose of the meeting was only to discuss the first phase of this project. That would involve safety and accessibility issues around the perimeter of the reservoir. Fencing, lighting and repair of the stairways were the only items that the DoPR were intending to discuss. When questioned about the type of fencing that they are designing for the perimeter of the basins they replied that it would be in keeping with the historical nature of the site. It is still unclear if either of the through paths will have 24/7 access. Some members of the community, understandably, dwelt on issues more specific to Highland Park and Ridgewood Reservoir as a whole unit, including money to improve Upper and Lower Highland Park.

Many people seemed a little irritated when the microphone was turned over to Bishop Benke, ostensibly, to ask a question. Unfortunately, he used the opportunity to commandeer the room and, as one person in the audience put it, deliver an "advertisement" for his church and its "40,000 members". The upshot of his message was that all his parishioners want more ballfields and preferably inside the basins. I'm not sure why Benke is so set on pushing for such an unreasonable use of funding when he clearly understands that Highland Park has been underfunded and under-maintained for decades. Also, he seems to have done a 180 degree shift in his attitude from his stance on this date:

"During that meeting Recreation and education at the reservoir were the central themes of a renovation plan developed by a team consisting of Bishop David Banke [sic], pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church of Cypress Hills, Roy Sawyer, community liaison for Assemblyman Towns and Sam and Ana Franqui of the Highlanders East New York United Front."

"According to Bishop Banke, the team was focused on recreating Ridgewood Reservoir as an educational and passive recreation center for residents in Brooklyn and Queens. One main component of the plan, as he described to participants, would be the formation of an environmental center at the easternmost basin ideal for students who can venture to the park on field trips to study wildlife and plant growth in the chamber."

"While reserving the middle basin as a man-made lake with fish, the bishop explained, the westernmost basin would be created into a botanical garden with greenhouses and a picnic area for students and parkgoers to gather. Banke also suggested that a new observation deck could be built in the southern section of the chamber to allow visitors to see sections of Brooklyn, Manhattan and Jamaica Bay from one of the highest points on Long Island."

A better use of his "40,000 member" leverage would be to campaign for more funding to fix up Highland Park.

Melissa Hick's, also from the design team, presented the results of surveys. Apparently, the team had gone out to the park and reservoir and surveyed people about what they thought SHOULD be done with the reservoir, as well as, what facilities should NOT be constructed. I wasn't surprised by the results because many of the people in this alliance have done less scientific surveys of people at the reservoir. 100% of those surveyed thought it should be used for nature. I don't remember the exact numbers, but significantly less than 50% thought active recreation facilities should be built. We will attempt to acquire that information as the data is important to share with everyone.

Documentary producer Bambi Bogert got permission from the DoPR press office to videotape the event. While I was speaking with her after the meeting, Queens Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski approached us. I heard her tell the commissioner that she would like to set up an appointment to interview her. The final project should be very interesting.

In general, I was pleased with the meeting. People asked a lot of very good questions and made it clear to the department of parks that the communities are watching the process very closely.

Later today I will post a summary of the second meeting, which was billed as a "working meeting".

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There will be a meeting of the Highland Park/Ridgewood Reservoir Alliance this Thursday, April, 9th starting at 7PM. The meeting will be held at the Ridgewood Democratic Club at 6070 Putnam Ave. All are welcome.


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