Talk Bronx New York

 WHOSE ARMORY? Northwest Bronx residents rally outside the Kingsbridge Armory in October

Members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA) watched in hushed suspense from the visitors gallery above the City Council chamber on Dec. 14.

After four years of building a grassroots movement to advocate responsible development in their community, they looked on as councilmembers voted on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plans to turn the Kingsbridge Armory, a 575,000-square-foot fortress-like structure in the northwest Bronx, into a lowwage shopping mall. When Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera (D-Bronx) finally announced the project’s defeat by a vote of 45-1, cheers rang throughout the chambers.

“This is a historic moment in the City Council,” said councilmember Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). “I can’t remember any big project like this that the mayor initially wanted, that the council would go against in support of the people.” Read more..

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After months of weighing the issue, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz gave a thumbs down Friday to the Related Cos.’ proposed redevelopment of the 600,000-plus-square-foot Kingsbridge Armory.

His decision came to light when he submitted his recommendations to the City Planning Commission as part of the city’s drawn-out Uniform Land Use Review Process. The borough president’s main objections were the lack of a community benefits agreement outlining a living wage policy, provisions that would allow workers to unionize and guarantees of expanded community space.

Mr. Diaz also objected to the developer’s plans to put a massive grocery store in the retail center, a step that he said would severely impact smaller grocers in the neighborhood. Far from condemning the project outright, he simply made it clear that his approval was merely contingent upon a community benefits agreement. Read more..

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Don’t pop the cork on the champagne just yet for that long-stalled 911 emergency call center in the Bronx.

First, the good news: The City Council is expected to give its final approval this week to zoning-related actions required for the $750 million project on a tract of land in Morris Park.

And now the bad news: The city still hasn’t reached a deal with the private owners of the 8.75-acre site, just north of the Hutchinson Metro Center.

Councilman James Vacca (D-East Bronx) helped pave the way for the expected zoning approvals by negotiating a community benefits agreement with the city.

For one, the height of the center will be capped at 254 feet, down 10 stories from the original 351 feet. And city officials agreed to a $1.1 million study of whether separate entrance and exit ramps should be be built to the site from the Hutchinson River Parkway. Read more..

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Report: Bronx Investment Returns Little for Borough’s Poor

A report focusing on the Northwest Bronx has found that as investment in the borough has increased in recent years, the influx of money has had little effect on the area’s poorer residents.

Released today by the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition and the Urban Justice Center, the report “Boom for Whom? How the Resurgence of the Bronx Is Leaving Residents Behind,” found that the area’s residents are stymied in a “a cycle of dead-end, part-time, and low-wage work.”

According to the study, which was based on surveys of 351 residents and Census data, 32% of surveyed adults are currently unemployed. Of those adults who are working and have a high school degree or lower, 55% are making a living wage.

The report also notes that what jobs do exist are mainly in retail, health care, and food services – industries that consist primarily of minimum wage jobs.

It recommends that Bronx neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment negotiate community benefits agreements with developers to create more affordable housing and higher-paying jobs. It also states that the city should build more high schools and create more workforce development programs.

The survey did not employ randomized sampling – for example, it relied heavily on data collected from Bronx high school students because its authors wanted to highlight the trouble teenagers face in finding work.

And while the racial demographics of those surveyed is close to that of census data, there are differences. Census data shows that 13% of the Northwest Bronx is white, but in the report, 4% of those surveyed were white.

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Who Says: We should have known this was coming. Just wait until the start tearing down the old stadium and find that the land is contaminated from an oil leak from the stadiums oil tanks..

Time and Cost Rise for Yankee Stadium Parks

 Anthony Santiago, left, and his twin brother, Christopher, playing in a temporary park at Jerome Avenue and East 161st Street.

 Cost estimates for eight small parks around the new Yankee Stadium have almost doubled.

The cost of replacing two popular parks where the new Yankee Stadium is being built has nearly doubled. At the same time, several of the eight new parks, which were supposed to be completed before the new stadium opens next spring, have been delayed by as much as two years, according to city documents.

The price of the new small parks — which are to replace tennis and basketball courts, a running track and baseball and soccer fields eliminated to make way for the new stadium — is now projected to be $174 million, almost one-seventh the cost of the $1.3 billion stadium itself. The original estimate had been $95.5 million. The increase comes amid skyrocketing costs for construction projects, both public and private, around the city.

The stadium is being financed by the Yankees with city subsidies, while the eight new parks for the South Bronx, which range in size from 0.24 acre to 8.9 acres, are being paid for by the city.

None of the replacement parks have been completed, and construction on several has not yet started; however, the parks department has built a temporary replacement park on a parking lot in the area, opened a ball field this spring at a school almost a mile to the east, and is building a sports field at a recreation center about a mile to the north.

The city was required to build the new parks after it selected the 28.4-acre Macombs Dam Park and a portion of the 18.5-acre John Mullaly Park as the site of the new stadium in 2005. State and federal law dictated that a similar amount of parkland nearby of equal or greater fair market value be built to replace the parks that would be lost.

Some residents have been critical of the trade-off. While Macombs Dam and Mullaly Parks were almost contiguous stretches of grass and trees amid the concrete topography of the South Bronx, the replacement parks are small parcels scattered around the area. The sites include sports fields atop a planned stadium parking garage and a park along the Harlem River, which is on the opposite side of the Major Deegan Expressway.

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