Climate Change Of Plans: City Will Not Completely Close East River Park For 3 Years To Make It More Resilient

Amidst an uproar over the city's plan to close East River Park for three years due to global heating and sea level rise, Mayor Bill de Blasio and city officials took an unscheduled tour of the park last Friday. Perhaps now we know why: the city has amended its plan to shut down all 45 acres of the park starting this spring, and instead will phase in the construction so only portions of the park are closed to the public at any given time. According to sources familiar with the new plan, the work is expected to be finished in 2025. [Update below: The city has issued a press release stating that "nearly half of the park" will remain open during the construction.]

The de Blasio administration will announce their change in plans before they have to present them to a City Council land use hearing on Thursday morning, sources tell Gothamist. The $1.45 billion plan was approved by the City Planning Commission last week, and is part of a larger East Side Coastal Resiliency project that stretches from Montgomery Street to East 25th Street.

Originally, the city had planned to construct flood barriers and berms along FDR Drive. But a year ago, the city concluded that plan was inadequate to protect from future Sandy-level storms and sea level rise. Instead they would use landfill to raise the park's ground by eight feet, above storm-surge levels. The plan includes building new entry points and connecting bridges to the park, redesigning the drainage system along the coastline, and installing flood gates. The park would also get a new amphitheater.

"Did we communicate the change properly? No," Department of Design and Construction commissioner Lorraine Grillo told angry Lower East Side residents at a meeting in January. At various community meetings to present the plan this year, DDC representatives insisted that they were doing what they could to find a way to phase-in construction, but that there would be no guarantees.

In early September, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and East Village Councilmember Carlina Rivera hired a Dutch environmental consulting firm to provide a third-party review of the city's plan. Brewer's office said that the consultant’s report will be an analysis of the past design and the city's current plan.

“I support the phasing-in of this project, but I implore the Administration to hold off on the beginning of construction as the independent consultant’s report is imminent and should be considered,” Brewer said in a statement.

"We are really pleased to hear that the city is listening to the community," said Dianne Lake, a member of the East River Alliance, a group formed in response to the plan to shut down the park. Lake added that the alliance was eager to see more details of the plan, as well as the results of the independent review.

"If the phasing plan is to level the park and rebuild it by eight feet, we'd like to know if that is a viable approach—do you do that all at once or do it is phases? Is that a good way to protect the community?"

[UPDATE / 1:18 p.m.] “The community spoke and we listened,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement that went out shortly after 1 p.m. “Nearly half of East River Park will remain open throughout construction – without compromising essential flood protections for 110,000 New Yorkers."

According to City Hall, the plan is the same plan—flood protections will be complete by 2023, and the park will be raised eight feet—only it will be completed in two phases. While some resiliency work will begin in the spring of 2020, the entirety of the park will be open until the fall and the beginning of phase one of the construction.

During phase one, which is projected to span from the fall of 2020 through the spring of 2023, "the vast majority of the park areas from Delancey to Houston Streets will remain open as well as the amphitheater area in the south and the portion from approximately East 10th to East 12th Street in the north," the release states.

The second phase will begin in the spring of 2023 through "late 2025," and "newly rebuilt portions of East River Park will be open from Houston Street to approximately East 10th Street, as well as the vast majority of the park areas from Corlears Hook Bridge to Delancey Street," according to the release.

There's more:

The full details of the phasing plan will be presented to the City Council zoning subcommittee on Thursday morning. The plan still needs City Council approval, before it moves to the mayor's desk.