There is a brighter financial future in store for the Hudson River Park, but at what cost to whom? Thanks to the combined efforts of State Assembly members Deborah Glick, Richard Gottfried and State Senator Brad Hoylman, legislation was passed giving extraordinary means to the Hudson River Park Trust to expand its funding base. While denied sought-after permission to build offshore high-rise residences in the storm tossed Hudson River, a designated estuary, the Trust did get the next best thing. The amendments to the Hudson River Park Act, passed literally at the closing bell of the legislature at midnight, June 21, now let the Trust sell the rights on land owned by the city and state to
private developers along the east side of the five mile long park.
Sell rights? What does that mean? I understand that people own and sell land and buildings, but what are rights and why do they have value? To understand this, you have to be as old as I am and remember the bottom of the pages of a long extinct newspaper called the Daily Mirror that sold for two cents a copy. At the bottom of some of the pages were printed dollar bills, play money, for kids like me to cut out and pretend to spend. Air rights are like that – created out of thin air; however, these air
rights have real value on the market.
Air rights are created by the City Council and the Mayor under the Zoning Law and administered by the City Planning Commission. They were used by the Penn Central Corporation to save the Grand Central Terminal, a landmark structure. The concept was pioneered by a city planner and a preservationist, Norman Marcus and Dorothy Minor, both with legal backgrounds. Air rights also form the mainstay of the proposed East Midtown District where Mayor Bloomberg hopes to outdo Dubai.
You can imagine what the edge of Central Park would look like if the Parks Department could sell air rights over the park – a 100-story wall with 60 ft wide notches for streets. However, normally parks do not have those rights to sell. Hudson River Park is different. In the last century, it comprised a shipping pier and was zoned for manufacturing and commercial use. It still is. The Planning Department never rezoned it as parkland. Furthermore, it not only zoned land inside the bulkhead for development, but also land under the river itself, 800 ft to the pier head line. The law places no limit on selling the rights of those portions of the park. Under current zoning, there are potentially over 40 million sq ft of floor area for sale with a value of $12 billion, and at least $300/sq ft for prime waterfront locations if a market could be found to build enormous buildings along the five mile stretch of West Street.
The money received by selling these rights is intended to rebuild the hulking Pier 40, perhaps the most unattractive building on the river, insulting to one of the most beautiful waterfront parks in the world. The amendments take the rights from the legal property owners, New York City and New York State, whom everyone knows are both strapped for park funding, and give them to the Trust to sell to developers with property across the highway from the park. Why could the City itself not be trusted to sell the air rights to fund the improvements in the park?
Along comes the NID (Neighborhood Improvement District) to bring in even more revenue needed for annual maintenance of Pier 40 and many more pier structures and buildings. The NID is a district proposed by the FOHRP (Friends of Hudson River Park). FOHRP was established many years ago under the chairmanship of Al Butzel to act as a watchdog over the park. Some say it has become the Trust’s lapdog. It does want to help the park survive financially, if not extravagantly. The NID would place a tax surcharge on all property within its boundaries roughly the same properties to which The Trust hopes to sell air rights. Every square foot it sells will produce additional annual income for the park. Not a bad investment! The only loser is the City which has effectively given up ownership of its own park, but, under another amendment to the law, is obliged by law to assume all liability for future storm damage, not only for the many existing buildings and structures but also those planned for
Piers 26, 54, 76, and 97, including a floating heliport with a two story building. No worries about tidal surge here. Let the City pick up the bills and the Trust, the income.
Now the Trust has shifted its attention from maintaining the park to encouraging high-rise development along the valuable privately owned property along West Street facing the park across the highway. What impact will this have on Community Boards 1, 2, and 4? What will be the impacts on the park itself from the large urban wall casting morning shadows on the park itself?
