Community District
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Bronx CD02 Projects
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Bronx Community District 02
1029 E. 163rd Street, Room 202
Bronx, NY 10459
Phone: 718.328.9125/6
Fax: 718.991.4974
Email: brxcb2@optonline.net
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NYC EDC Overview: Hunts Point Vision Plan
Hunts Point Vision Plan poster (PDF)
Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp.
Sustainable South Bronx Greenway
Mayor's Announcement South Bronx Greenway Plan
City Planning Press Release on Public Review (Jan 2008)
Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation
Hunts Point Vision Plan
Plans to revitalize the Hunts Point neighborhood in the South Bronx originated in 2003 from the work of the Hunts Point Task Force. In 2005, the Hunts Point Vision Plan was unveiled, the goals of which include creating jobs and a competitive business environment, as well as building a sustainable community. Plans also include the development of new waterfront parks, improving traffic safety, upgrading street lighting, adding recreation trails, repaving streets and improving the rail freight lines serving Hunts Point. Additionally, the Vision Plan involves collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide new bus service to the Hunts Point area.
On November 21, 2006, Mayor Bloomberg announced a $30 million plan to add parkland, recreation space and landscaped streets to the Hunts Point Peninsula. Hunts Point Riverside Park was completed and opened in September of the following year. The park will eventually be connected to an 8-mile greenway that will run along the Bronx River from Westchester down to New York City, providing much needed open space, waterfront access and opportunities for mixed used economic development. The South Bronx Greenway Project (SBG) has largely been championed by the local community group, Sustainable South Bronx, but it is also part of the mayor’s greater efforts to reclaim the New York City waterfront for recreational uses.
Another facet of the Vision Plan includes zoning changes. In January of 2008, the Department of City Planning certified the ULURP application for a rezoning designed to create buffer zones around residential and industrial areas and foster economic development in the neighborhood.
Recent headlines
City Council Approves Hunts Point Rezoning Plan
July 24, 2008
New York Daily News
City Sued By Hunts Point Residents Over Odor
July 9, 2008
NY1
Mayor Bloomberg Releases Plan for South Bronx Development
June 18, 2008
The Real Deal
North Brother Island
The little-known North Brother Island lies in the East River off the south shore of the borough of the Bronx. At 19.3 acres in size, North Brother Island is currently one of the largest segments of city-managed greenery in the South Bronx. Due in part to a lack of open space access in the area and to the immense historic and ecological significance of the island, various community advocates and political officials are calling for increased human access to the island. However, human access could potentially pose grave conflicts with the current island inhabitants - the hundreds of shorebirds that nest here and call this island home from early spring to late fall.
Recent headlines
Forgetting and remembering the Slocum
October 25, 2004
Gotham Gazette
The General Slocum disaster
October 1, 2004
New York Newsday
Dinner With Typhoid Mary
October 1, 2004
New York Newsday
Quick Links
South Bronx Jail Plan
The city’s Economic Development Corporation is negotiating with Oak Point Energy to purchase a 28-acre parcel of former industrial land in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx to be used for a new detention center to relieve overcrowding on Rikers Island. In addition to housing 2,040 inmates, the proposed complex would have 600 parking spaces and a kitchen where meals for all of the city’s jails would be prepared. The site is one of the largest undeveloped parcels of land in New York City.
Plans to site the jail on the Oak Point parcel have already drawn strong opposition from a variety of community groups and local leaders. Environmentalists are concerned about possible toxic chemicals on the site, the Corrections Officers Union contend that the money would be better spent fixing Rikers Island and local politicians contend that the jail might stunt the economic resurgence of the South Bronx. The Department of Corrections argues that the site is the only place in the Bronx large enough to accommodate a prison. Once the land is purchased by EDC, the project, whose cost is estimated at $375 million, will begin the ULURP process. Construction would start in 2009 and be finished in 2013. On April 13, 2007, opponents earned more time to continue their fight after Steven E. Smith, the owner of the proposed jail site, won a temporary restraining order in Federal Bankruptcy Court that delays the plan’s first public hearing.
In late 2007, Sustainable South Bronx, filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request in order to obtain the City's records on this development and how the decision to build a jail came about. The City held that the documents did not pertain to FOIL, however on January 17, 2008 the state Supreme Court ruled that the city had not provided sufficient information for withholding the documents and had until March 21, 2008 to do so. The city is now required to list all documents it wishes to withhold and why it would like to do so, then the judge, Justice Payne, has the opportunity to look at the list and the documents and decide whether or not they must be made public. The site’s owner is still involved in a bankruptcy case, which has postponed the start of any public hearings.
Recent headlines
Potential Site Selected in Hunts Point for New Jail
June 16, 2008
New York Daily News
Authorities Looking for New Site for Jail in Bronx
March 11, 2008
New York Daily News
City Drops Plans to Build Jail in South Bronx
March 5, 2008
New York Times