Bronx Council for Environmental Quality

Fordham Landing Study 2019

September 13th, 2019 Posted in Fordham Landing, Harlem River Working Group, Projects

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The Bronx Council for Environmental Quality (BCEQ) is a 501c3 organization consisting of volunteers, no staff. Founded in 1971, we are a Bronx wide group advocating for clean water, air and land. Recently, we applied for a grant from the NY State Department of State under the Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Program. We qualified to apply because we completed two previous grants from the from the State Department of State under the Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Program.

The BOA program was set up to encourage re-development through tax credits complying with publicly supported plans. In 2016 because BCEQ completed these two reports, the Secretary of State designated the Harlem River as a Brownfield Opportunity Area – setting the stage for the tax credits. Our Step 2 report nominated 8 strategic sites and 3 strategic connections that the community felt was ripe for development – the low hanging fruit. Those plans tell the story of the community’s vision of a “contiguous waterfront park” along the Harlem.

The recent grant is for a waterfront redevelopment project that will build on resiliency and nature-based criteria to design a marina and park as part of preliminary pre-implementation plans for the project site and adjoining areas. These designs can be duplicated in part in other areas in the BOA Designation area. Located in the BCEQ Harlem River Designated Brownfield Opportunity Area (BCEQ BOA) of Bronx Community Board 7, the Former University Heights Yard (UHY) on Landing Avenue at 192nd Street in the Bronx along the Harlem River is listed in the BCEQ BOA Step 2 report as Strategic Site #8 in need of remediation; the adjacent area north is Strategic Connection #2 to West 225^th Street, and Strategic Connection #3 to West 230^th Street along the Putnam Rail Trail (Putnam Trail).

Strategic Site #8 is the Former University Heights Yard on Landing Avenue at 192nd Street in the Bronx along the Harlem River. (Block 3244, Lot 1 and Block 3245, Lot 3 on the Bronx Borough Tax Map). This site in the NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program with plans for a public park among other things. (Brownfield Cleanup Program Application C203120). The property owner is CSX.
Long envisioned as part of the northern Harlem River Greenway, Strategic Connections #2 and #3 are part of the Putnam Trail South that extends from these Connector points through the Bronx to Westchester and Putnam Counties. Currently the only publicly accessible part of the Putnam Trail in New York City is in Van Cortlandt Park.

The grant plans to prepare (1) preliminary designs for a waterfront park, and nature-based greenway; (2) guidelines for the NYS DEC permits needed for those designs; and (3) GI workforce training for contractors and workers with design-build-maintain one day implement those designs. BCEQ’s proposed study will continue to employ nature-based best practices that are designed to remove harmful pollutants insitu from the designated Brownfield Opportunity Area sites, improve the water quality of the Harlem River, and incorporate green infrastructure into the planning of a “contiguous waterfront park.”

These strategic areas are closely aligned with the successful renaissance and economic development of the Broadway North Corridor in the Bronx. Surrounded by I-87 and the Elevated Subway, greening the future Putnam Trail south with nature-based designs softens and quiets the walk. It is an excellent clean water investment that naturally minimizes climate change, sea level rise, and stormwater runoff. And is important in the Daylighting of Tibbetts Brook out of the pipe and into the Harlem River.

BCEQ Harlem River Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) Step 2 is FINAL

Below are two files which make up the whole report.

160304 HR BOA FINAL REPORT-Sect 1-3

160304 HR BOA FINAL REPORT Sect 4 & Appendix

Urban Land Institute did this report on University Heights:

http://newyork.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/03/University-Heights-TAP_FINAL.pdf

Pratt Institute and Trust for the Public Land did this visioning document:

http://harlemriverworkinggroup.org/greenway/

MIT did a great study on the Harlem River Waterfront: Bronx: Meet Your Waterfront Plan

http://issuu.com/bronx-studio/docs/bronx-waterfront-plan

Harlem River BOA Step 1 – study and report by BCEQ

http://www.bceq.org/2008/09/07/harlem-river-brownfiled-opportunity-area-boa/

Reclaiming the Riverfront study and power point by CB 7 and Columbia U Grad Students

Reclaiming the Riverfront Planning Report BX CB7 May 2010

Look for the Power Point to be uploaded soon! — one is the power point (large file 87 MB), the other is the pdf of it (medium file size 21 MB) which is zipped below:

Here is the zipped file — Restorying the Riverfront ppt May 2010

HRWG Power Point HRWG Complete Presentation

BP Power Point BxBPWaterFrontPresentationbrief

ULURP the PUTNAM LINE into a GREENWAY

Here is the pdf of the proposal that is at CPC Dec 2010 —PutnamGreenway