Council Member Lincoln Restler hosted a town hall meeting last night for constituents in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. On hand were representatives from city agencies, including Parks, Sanitation, and Transportation.
The council member gave a few updates about neighborhood projects and developments. He told constituents that his office is trying its best to get the Mayor’s office to demolish the city storage building, currently separating Marsha P. Johnson State Park and Bushwick Inlet Park from being one unified parcel of land. Another top priority for local parks is the long-promised Box Street Park.
While the council member was slightly dismayed that the NuHart development site was turning into luxury housing, instead of much-needed affordable housing units, he mentioned that the developer was fully committed to the site cleanup.
A rep from the Department of Transportation revealed that DOT has started to do some intersection work, including turn bans at Nassau, Driggs, and Engert. While there was some slight pushback from a few constituents via questions and comments in the chat, both the council member and the DOT rep stressed that these turn bans are means-tested, standard procedure for DOT, and can easily be removed if found not to yield intended results.
After presentations from city reps, the floor opened up for a Q&A. Top of mind for many constituents were questions concerning transportation, McGuinness Boulevard, and Open Streets. Folks wanted to know what was being done to address the poor conditions at American Playground, as well as Greenpoint Playground. Another person brought up concerns with dogs in public spaces, fearing that they dominated available green spaces.
Technical troubles prevented a planned recording of the session from materializing, but as always, contact district33@council.nyc.gov for any assistance with local issues.
Many thanks to Council man Restler for having the shredding event in McCarren Park recently. I cannot tell you the number of yrs. I waited to have this event in Greenpoint.
Glad to see others speaking up about dogs taking over green spaces. Transmitter was a complete dog run this year – I tried to lie down but the ground just reeked of dog pee. Not to mention that the lawn was a dust bowl.
I understand there’s few dog runs in the neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean that the small amount of green space we have should be rendered unusable by irresponsible dog owners.
Wow! Look at the size of the “large” dog run planned for Box Street Park! Maybe if they give dogs *actual* space they won’t “dominate available green space”