The Department of City Planning is embarking on a year-long, five-borough waterfront listening tour, an initiative aimed at crafting a long-term vision for over 500 miles of some of the city’s most coveted property.
The plan, called Vision 2020, seeks to build on the agency’s original Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, published in 1992, as well as the past 18 years of experience, which has seen an increase in publicly accessible waterfront by approximately 29 miles of shoreline with an additional 13 miles in progress.
“We plan to talk about the multiplicity of uses and priorities for the waterfront, as well as the water itself, which we call the ‘blue network,’” said City Planning spokesperson Rachelle Raynoff.
The agency will rely on public input to inform and develop its plan, and the agency will announced meetings and workshops in Brooklyn as the initiative moves forward.
Over the past decade, the borough’s working waterfront has seen tremendous change, from the rise of luxury housing in Williamsburg, to what appears to be a recommitment — after a pitched battle — to a working waterfront in Red Hook. But it is premature, the agency said, to surmise how the plan will impact the next decade of planning in Brooklyn.
As per legislation passed by the City Council in 2008, City Planning is required by local law to complete Vision 2020 by December 31, 2010 and to revise the report every decade thereafter to ensure that the city’s waterfront policies are updated.
The agency’s first public meeting on the plan is scheduled for April 8, at Murry Bergtraum High School, 411 Pearl Street inManhattan, from6-8 p.m. For more information about the plan, or updates about future meetings, go to nyc.gov/waterfront.
–Gary Buiso
