It’s a sunny spring afternoon, and a handful of residents are spending time on the stoop of Jasmine Court, on the corner of 138th Street and Bruckner Boulevard. Trucks rumble on and off the expressway. Pedestrians hurry past.

Laura Barksdale, 52, says she sits outside because she likes to watch the people go by. But she acknowledges Port Morris is not the most comfortable place to hang out outdoors.

“There’s nowhere to relax and sit around,” she said. “There’s nowhere to go.”

The industrial area at the borough’s southernmost tip is a place of trucks, factories and fumes, with little to offer humans who travel by foot or by bike, or want to sit a spell. But the proposed South Bronx Greenway could bring tree-lined paths and waterfront parks to Port Morris’ lifeless streets.

Work is already underway on the Randall’s Island Connector, the first step in implementing an ambitious plan that could eventually lace much of the South Bronx with safe and attractive places to exercise and enjoy the outdoors.

Once the Randall’s Island Connector is built, the plan calls for trees to be planted along Willow and Locust Avenues and 138th Street. Cyclists will get their own lane, protected from trucks by a curb.

Right now, the streets leading to the East River shore end in barbed-wire fences. The plan calls for access to the river from 132nd and 134th streets, where small waterfront parks will be built.

Plans for the South Bronx Greenway originated in Hunts Point a dozen years ago, when Majora Carter, then a program associate at The Point Community Development Corporation, wrote a $1.25 million grant proposal to make the waterfront more accessible.

Two new waterfront parks opened in Hunts Point in 2006, but the remainder of the plan remained on paper until this spring, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that $22 million in federal stimulus money would be used to move the greenway from the drawing board to reality.

Completion of the greenway would make it possible for walkers or cyclists to take a trail from Port Morris to Hunts Point Riverside Park, and to connect there with the Bronx River Greenway, leading all the way to Westchester.

“The greenway will offer a community that has had the least amount of park space per resident, compared to the rest of the city of New York, some breathing room,” said Miquela Craytor, executive director of Sustainable South Bronx.

Jasmine Court, an assisted living facility for the formerly homeless, is a rare place in Port Morris where people actually live. But the Port Morris section of the greenway will also benefit the tens of thousands people living nearby in Mott Haven, and waterfront enthusiasts from even further afield.

Forty-year-old Ozzie Morales, a delivery driver from East Elmhurst, likes to stop his van at the fence at the end of 134th Street and enjoy the view.

“I think it would be really, really great,” he said when told about the proposed greenway. “It’s a beautiful view, and this is wasted land. It has so much potential. I could see seating here, and a promenade, like they did on the West Side in the 20’s.”

There are also thousands of people with jobs in Port Morris. Vanessa Lloyd, 18, is a clerical worker at the World Vision distribution center in Port Morris. She thinks trees and bike paths would make the neighborhood a better place to work.

“We need something like that to make it look lively. To have people be able to ride their bikes instead of walking in all this trash,” she said. “It’d be nice to have some healthiness around.”

A number of Mott Haven community leaders are complaining that they have been left out of planning the South Bronx Greenway’s future.

At stake, they argue, is not only recreation but jobs.

“There’s a whole spectrum of economic development opportunities here, and we want to make sure this is as inclusive as it needs to be,” Arline Parks, the chair of Community Board 1’s economic development committee, said at a recent committee meeting.

A team of consultants is working with Hunts Point community groups to plan how businesses and residents can get the most out of the proposed greenway. They are developing a business plan for a new, home-grown non-profit organization that would manage the greenway, putting more effort into upkeep than city agencies would be expected to.

“It’s a difference of do you want it kept clean, or kept clean and also planted every year,” said Frank Randazzo, director of the Bronx Empowerment Zone, an arm of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation that provided $150,000 to pay the consultants.

According to Daniel Hernandez, one of those consultants, the new non-profit will most likely resemble Solar 1, the environmental education group that manages Stuyvesant Cove Park on the East River in Manhattan.

The management organization would hire other groups to run programs, organize commerce and maintain the greenway. Local residents would have priority in filling these contracts.

“There’s a lot of momentum and investment in the greenway, and implementation of this is critical,” Hernandez said. “People will see that.”

The completed plan will be presented to a steering committee assembled by Paul Lipson, Rep. Jose Serrano’s chief of staff. The committee, which includes representatives of the New York and Bronx Overall economic development corporations and several non-profits, will be in charge of turning the plan into a reality.

“It seemed to me it was more Hunts Point than Mott Haven centered,” said Parks, after a presentation at Board 1’s office.

“They talked about vendors, concerts and other activities. You’d want to make sure our community members could be vendors, and host activities, and participate in the economic development opportunities. You’d want to make sure it’s going to represent Mott Haven and Hunts Point,” she said.

Mott Haven has almost twice as many residents as Hunts Point, but Parks said Hunts Point has gained an advantage because of its activist organizations. “Mott Haven doesn’t have the kinds of organizations that Hunts Pont has,” she said. “Hunts Point has been ahead of the curve in that regard.”

Harry Bubbins, the director of Friends of Brook Park, said he was glad work was being done on the greenway.

“We were leading bike tours to promote the idea 10 years ago, so we’re very pleased to see some progress on this project,” he said.

But Bubbins was disappointed that he hadn’t heard anything about plans for a new organization to run the greenway. And he was worried that a planning process that doesn’t involve the whole community might seem efficient in the short-term, but ultimately fall short of its goals. “There’s a consolidation within Hunts Point groups at the expense of larger community building,” he said.

The Port Morris Industrial Business Zone promotes economic development in the area immediately surrounding a portion of the proposed greenway. Stephane Hyacinthe, who runs the program, said he thinks the greenway sounds like a wonderful idea, but no one has contacted him about the plan.

“It’s an initiative I’d be more than willing to work on and give my expertise and knowledge,” he said, “but I don’t know who’s spearheading the project.”

Maryann Hedaa, who heads the Hunts Point Alliance for Children and is a member of the steering committee, said the perception that Mott Haven and Port Morris groups were being left out of the planning for the management of the greenway was probably correct.

But, she added, “I don’t think the right people from Hunts Point are on the committee either.”

She is less worried about the geographic makeup of the committee than she is about its collective expertise.

“The trouble is there’s no real business leadership involved,” she said. “It could be a whole lot of money going down the drain if you don’t get the right people managing it. I’m worried the people on that committee will maintain the status quo, and the status quo in the South Bronx isn’t sustainable.”

In addition to the Hunts Point Alliance for Children, the steering committee includes representatives from The Point CDC, Rocking the Boat and Sustainable South Bronx.

Randazzo also said Mott Haven and Port Morris may have been overlooked. While much of the work is already done, he said there is still time for additional input on how the greenway should be managed.

“Is there room for another opinion? I would say sure. Is it going to have the same effect as if you’d been there since day one? Probably not,” he said. “Sometimes it’s tough to remember everybody.”

By Lindsay Lazarski

lindsay.lazarski@motthavenherald.com

Elected officials and the Parks Department describe Randall’s Island as an invaluable resource, and boast that its waterfront pathways provide scenic views and “increased access” to recreation “for the neighboring communities of East Harlem and the South Bronx.”

But the island, only a stone’s throw from the Bronx, has been reachable only from Manhattan or by driving over the Triborough Bridge–until now.

In two years the South Bronx Connector; a 1.5 mile pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists, will open under the historic Amtrak trestle on Randall’s Island making  newly- renovated fields, a new tennis center and Icahn Stadium easier for South Bronx residents to reach.

But a controversial decision to restrict use of the fields to private schools on school-day afternoons will keep the facilities off-limits then, despite the new route from Port Morris to the island.

And boaters have complained that the footbridge and Con Edison utility cables underneath the bridge will make navigation at high tide difficult.

Nevertheless construction of the connector nearly a decade after its conception wins applause from local advocates.  

“The South Bronx Connector is long overdue,” said Arline Parks, chair of the Land Use Committee of Community Board 1. “For the first time, we are seeing the kind of development that reshapes our area of the Bronx and gives us an opportunity to have a better hold on the community.”

The connector is part of the South Bronx Greenway project, a network of green streets and waterfront trails and parks in Hunts Point and Port Morris, which has gotten a boost from $22 million in federal stimulus funds and is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2012.

Phase 1 of the connector, a footbridge over the Bronx Kill, located just south of 132^nd street in Port Morris, is nearly done. 

  Construction of the bridge is expected to be completed by the end of the summer, but the pathway will not be open to pedestrians and bikers until the full project is completed in the fall of 2011, said Janel Patterson a spokeswoman for the New York City Economic Development Corporation. 

Con Ed will incorporate new electrical equipment on the underside of the connector to upgrade power for Icahn Stadium, the Fire Department training center, and a water treatment plant on the island, said Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert.

“Con Ed hijacked the bridge project,” charges Harry Bubbins, director of Friends of Brook Park, which is threatening a lawsuit over the obstacle to boaters.

The cables on the South Bronx Connector are not the only source of controversy.

 The Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, a public-private partnership, and the parks department are building new sports fields and renovating existing ones. They will almost double the number of fields on the island, to 66.

But local residents may be barred from using those fields some of the time.

To pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the new fields, the parks department has proposed a concession agreement with 20 independent private schools in Manhattan.

In exchange for $2.2 million, the private schools would receive guaranteed permits for half the fields from 3-6 p.m. during the spring and fall.

Public schools and community-based organization would receive 40 percent of the permits and the remaining 10 percent would be left for other applicants.

The proposal is a second effort to fund the ball fields project through concessions to the private schools.

In 2008, State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich ruled the plan had not followed the proper public review process and overturned the agreement.  

Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district includes part of Mott Haven and Randall’s Island, said the new proposal has made some progress, but added she still has philosophical concerns over the privatization of public parkland. 

“It is an issue of access and equity in my eyes,” said Mark-Viverito at a public hearing. “We believe in public-private partnerships, and that is important in this city, but we have to ensure that those public-private partnerships don’t create inequities within our communities.”

Hear Geoffrey Croft's take on the process and environmental impact of the plan

 Geoffrey Croft, the president of New York City Park Advocates, said he did not see much of a difference between the initial proposal and the latest one.  

“The whole definition and purpose of public parkland is that they’re supposed to be public, and not be able to be bought by any group, rich or poor,” said Croft.  “Everyone is into making deals and concessions, but that is not what the purpose of a public park is. They are supposed to be open to everybody.”

But Lou Schlanger, athletic director at the South Bronx Campus high schools and director of the Randall’s Island Kids Summer Camp, defended the arrangement.

“Everybody is not satisfied and wished they had more time, but nobody would have anything without the foundations initiatives.  The island still would have been a sand box with broken glass and everything.” 

“Whatever the deal is,” he added, “It is a win for everybody.”

But this may change.

The city has a plan that could bring new life – and new investment – to the lower Concourse and Harlem River waterfront.  The Department of City Planning has envisioned a new future for this 30-block area.

In the next few years the neighborhood’s first large supermarket may replace factories. The stately apartment buildings that line the Grand Concourse to the north could be mirrored in the south.

And the Harlem River Waterfront could be transformed within a decade to a Battery Park City of the North, with towering apartment buildings as high as 40 stories overlooking a waterfront promenade laced with open-air cafes and patches of green.

The government is not going to build any of this itself.  But, through a process called rezoning, it can change the rules that govern how people who own property in the area develop and use their land.

“We want to create a place where people can live, work, shop and play,” said Carol Samol, head of the city planning department’s Bronx office.

Current zoning rules keep buildings small in this area–just blocks away from Mott Haven’s towering housing projects–and prohibit their use as homes.  By changing these rules, the city hopes to encourage property owners either to convert vacant manufacturing lofts to housing, sell their land to developers or build something new themselves.

Community Board 1 unanimously approved the plan at its February meeting, though some board members voiced misgivings.

Board member Mychal Johnson said he’s worried that rising rents could eventually drive out the area’s long-time residents. The proposed new rules would encourage developers to build affordable housing in the district along with higher-rent housing.  But Johnson is concerned that that might not be enough, because the definition of “affordable” is pegged to the average income of people living in New York City as well as Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties.

“Sometimes that doesn’t help people here,” Johnson said, “because this community is on the lower end.”

Based on the most recent income calculations, a family earning as much as $55,000 would be eligible for a subsidized two-bedroom apartment, and the rent could be as high as $1,237.

“Of course we don’t want our sky blocked with skyscrapers,” Johnson said. “One of the reasons I love the Bronx is that we’re not boxed in.” But he voted to support the plan because he thinks community will benefit from a better mix of incomes.

The warehouses and parking lots of the Harlem River waterfront may be replaced within a decade by modern development

Commercial investment would also bring needed jobs, he believes, along with real estate tax payments that might help improve local schools.  In addition, he hopes that economic incentives will pressure local polluters like the waste transfer station in the Oak Point Yards to clean up their acts.

Other concerns arise because more apartment buildings would mean more riders on the subway, more cars on the road, more kids in the classrooms and more patients in the hospital.  In its environmental study of the project, the city planning department estimated the plan could bring over 10,000 new residents within 10 years.

Board member Alice Simmons said development should be an ongoing dialogue. “We’re talking about a 10-year goal,” she said.  “It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Community Board 1 Chairman George Rodriguez said residents had reason to worry about such a big change, and acknowledged that he himself is worried about protecting local small businesses.  But rezoning is an important part of revitalizing the South Bronx, he said, and worries should not be an excuse to do nothing.

“You might open a Pandora’s box, but then, you might not,” Rodriguez said.

The small conference room at the community board office was overflowing with people on the evening of the vote.  The planning department showed PowerPoint slides with maps, photos of buildings in the areas that would be rezoned and renderings of potential new development.

Board members and members of the audience expressed their concerns during a question and answer period.

One board member said that Mott Haven needs a state-of-the-art public library.

Pamela Smith, the president of the Mitchel Houses tenants’ association, worried that increased traffic and taller buildings would create and trap air pollution in an area where asthma is already epidemic.
Two representatives of the community group Nos Quedamos asked about churches in the plan, and how the plan would address the influence of Sin City, a strip club on Park Avenue.

Samol said the new zoning rules would not prevent the construction of churches or libraries. She also said that car technology is becoming cleaner, and developers would plant street trees to help clean the air.

Business that are currently operating will not be forced to move, she said, but once the area has a residential zoning new adult establishments will not be allowed.

The City Planning Commission is currently reviewing the proposal.  The City Council is expected to vote on the plan sometime this summer.