Demand the NO ACTION option for SNAD

August 27th, 2019 Posted in Environmental Reviews, Front Page News, Green Infrastructure, Harlem River Working Group, Hudson River Watershed Projects, Living Ecological Green Infrastructure, Low Impact Development, NYC Parks Department, Project Green, Resiliency and Sustainability

The Special Natural Areas District (SNAD) in the Bronx is being changed by City Planning.

The proposed change would allow construction of impervious surfaces and lawns within buffers can impair buffer function by clearing trees, altering existing wetland hydrology, and increasing thermal impacts. As you know, grass lawns and landscaped areas can hamper infiltration, increase storm water runoff velocity and, due to residential and/or commercial fertilizer use, dramatically increase nutrient loading to wetlands and waters.

The proposal would relax restrictions and allow widespread development in areas previously determined ecologically sensitive, such as Alder Brook, Harlem and Hudson Rivers, Riverdale and Raoul Wallenberg Parks.

It would allow development on properties of less than one acre in affected areas to avoid City Planning review and the public participation which it entails, in favor of Buildings Department approval.

Finally, it would allow community facilities to build more and preserve less than what is required of homeowners, and eliminate environmental review for certain institutional projects.

What you can do to help.  Send an email now, (cut, copy and paste)
To: snad@bceq.org  
(the email will go to: City Planning, 19DCP083Y, Council Member Cohen, Assemblyman Dinowitz, and Bronx Community Board 8)
 
Subject: I demand the NO ACTION option on 19DCP083Y
 
I demand the NO ACTION option on 19DCP083Y and oppose your proposal.
 
Thank you,
Name 
Address
Add more info if you want.  You can forward this email to others and get them to send the email.
The more letters that City Planning receives, the better our chances of beating this.
That is what they did in Staten Island, and the City withdrew their changes.
City Planning Commission Hearing

Join us at the 

Public Hearing on

Wednesday, August 28 at
120 Broadway, Concourse Level
New York, NY
10 am to ….
You only have 2.5 minutes to speak so it’s easy!

Thank you

We want to thank you for helping to preserve and restore our environment.  The City of New York is already 72% impervious!  The Bronx side of the Harlem River Watershed is 66% which is better but more can be done.  We estimate that the SNAD is about 50% but that is not mentioned in the DEIS. (CEQR 19DCP083Y)

We can classify stream quality levels by percent imperiousness. Streams in an area of ranging from 1 to 10% impervious cover are “stressed streams.”  In 11 to 25% impervious cover areas, streams are impacted. And in areas of 26 to 100% impervious cover, streams are degraded.  In fact, research indicates that watersheds are demonstrably and irreversibly degraded when as little as 10% of their surface area is covered by impervious surfaces.

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