On the Verge

New York City is in the midst of one of the greatest expansions of parks and public spaces in its history. From large regional parks to neighborhood street ends to pedestrian-friendly greenways, the current waterfront revival will likely be remembered as a time on par with the great park movements of the 1860s, 1930s and 1960s.

There are close to 700 acres of waterfront parks and public spaces in more than 50 projects now being planned or under construction throughout the City (over 2,800 acres when including Fresh Kills Park in Staten Island). Nearly 60 miles of waterfront access is being added through parks, greenways and esplanades.

This extraordinary legacy is fueled by available properties, a robust real estate cycle, and the desire of the public and elected leaders to reclaim access to the harbor. The City and State deserve enormous credit for pursing this agenda. But, for every ambitious plan and initial capital investment, there is also the far less glamorous task of managing a new public space.

Traditionally, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation (Parks & Recreation) has been the agency responsible for keeping New York City parks clean and safe, and offering recreational and cultural programs. Funding for operating the parks and delivering these services has come from the City’s general operating funds, supplemented in many cases by private ​“Friends” groups that donate funding, in-kind services, and volunteer hours.

The management model for many of the city’s new waterfront parks and public spaces is fundamentally different, both in terms of financing and in terms of jurisdiction. Discussions about the financing of these new waterfront parks are occurring in the general context of a Parks & Recreation operating budget that has yet to recover from the cuts in the early 1990s. New York City was recently ranked 21st among major US cities on operations expenditures per capita by the Trust for Public Land. While Parks & Recreation has received additional and significant operating funds recently, organizations such as New Yorkers for Parks and others have argued that the current budget does not allow the agency to meet its management goals.

Given this shortfall, Parks & Recreation has been directed to find additional, site-specific resources to support existing and new waterfront management responsibilities. Parks departments have long sought revenues from private concessions, permits, and philanthropy to help fill funding gaps at existing parks. But today’s new parks seem to be required, if not to pay for themselves, to at least to have some associated revenue stream. Based on the average costs of currently operating and future City and State parks, new waterfront parks will require around $135,000 an acre each year for management, maintenance, security and creative programming.

Agency personnel, non-profit organizations, and private developers are creating innovative ways of addressing this unofficial mandate in waterfronts across the City. This has resulted in a number of different and innovative public/private management partnerships. In many ways, New York City is a leader in this national trend. But while each project must ultimately address its own specific needs, it is unclear whether this site-by-site process will ultimately result in the best city-wide waterfront park system.

As with most City services, any deficit tends to be felt particularly in neighborhoods with limited access to the budget process and fewer options for private philanthropy to fill the gaps. The New York City Parks Foundation, Partnership for Parks, and a variety of non-profit programs have sought to level this playing field but, not surprisingly, the most lucrative partnership opportunities are in neighborhoods with greater financial resources. Taken to its extreme, this can be seen as leading to a ​“two tier” system of parks: those with private resources and those without.

Moreover, many of these new generation waterfront public spaces are not conceived of as traditional parks and may not be managed by Parks & Recreation. Some public spaces are associated with public or private waterfront redevelopment; maintenance of these public spaces will not be central to the organizational mission of the public or private landowner. The new waterfront greenways - key links in the new waterfront park system - cross multiple property lines. Managing this wonderful connectivity falls largely on the City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT), which has traditionally been more concerned with moving vehicles than pedestrians and bicyclists. Ensuring that these new breeds of waterfront public spaces have the same permanence, public character, and vitality associated with traditional parks is of concern.

These thorny issues are now being grappled with by public park managers and other agency officials, non-profit parks advocates, community leaders, developers, and design professionals. There is a wealth of experimentation and experience now being developed throughout the City on the opportunities and limitations of different management models and funding streams. This new breed of waterfront parks has challenged traditional assumptions about parks and public spaces. In some cases differences in opinions as to what constitutes appropriate uses of parkland, the responsibility of government and taxpayers, and the role of the private sector in providing public services has resulted in considerable controversy. To compile and learn from these largely site by-site arrangements, RPA convened a working group of savvy and experienced professionals. A year-long process of presentations and discussions, together with the analysis of essential background information, has enabled us to identify specific management models and citywide policy recommendations. These proposals, individually or together, will help ensure that this new generation of waterfront parks and public spaces meet the promise of a revitalized waterfront. While the recommendations presented in this report are directed primarily to the City and City agencies, in most cases they are also applicable to State-owned and managed parks and public spaces.