PUBLISHED BY MOSHOLU PRESERVATION CORPORATION

Commish:
Plant Will Bring Parks 'Renaissance'

By JORDAN MOSS

The city's Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner, Chris Ward, is the quarterback for the city's plan to build a water filtration plant under the Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. But he is receiving enthusiastic assistance from the Parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, who believes the project is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rehabilitate parks all over the Bronx. 

Benepe, 45, has spent most of his career in the city parks system, working his way up from park ranger in 1979 to Manhattan borough commissioner to his current office in the Arsenal in Central Park overseeing the entire city park system.

Not the guy one would normally expect to be out front fighting for a project that will turn 40 acres of the northwest Bronx into a construction zone for at least five years.

But in a lengthy telephone interview with the Norwood News, Benepe explained why he is certain that the project is a win-win situation for Van Cortlandt Park and for parks all over the borough. 

Benepe forecasts only $5 million in capital money available for all Bronx parks in Fiscal Year 2005. And much of that, he says, is for big-ticket items already planned. Compare that, he says, to the original $43 million slated for improving Van Cortlandt Park. And then figure another $200 million the city is adding to the pot for Bronx parks projects. 

What could this mean for local parks? One of the highest priorities, Benepe said, is the Williamsbridge Oval in Norwood and he envisions $15 million for renovating that park's crumbling infrastructure. "Williamsbridge Oval could use a complete overhaul," Benepe said. "It's very high on the list." Figure another $8 million for renovating the baseball diamonds and maybe adding a bandstand at Harris Field in Bedford Park and another unspecified amount for completing what Benepe referred to as the master plan for the Jerome Park Reservoir. 

"This is an opportunity to create a renaissance for the Bronx parks system," Benepe said. "[You would have to] go back to 1930 and the WPA [Works Progress Administration] to find an equivalent in parks infrastructure." 

Park advocates and community activists have many reasons for opposing the plan, despite this promise of unprecedented capital largesse. They argue that the city has skirted public zoning and land use procedures and that taking parkland for an industrial facility will mean that parkland everywhere will be prone to disruption. 

But Benepe believes the opposite is true. "There's a notion being spread that there's some kind of crisis for parks being used for non-park purposes," he said, admitting that there have been occasional encroachments on parkland for such purposes. "The trend is going in the opposite direction." Benepe said he expects the addition of 4,000 acres of parkland in the next 10 years. 

The commissioner is also unmoved by arguments that the filtration plant construction will harm the neighboring community. 

"Yes, there will be a temporary inconvenience as there is across the city for a variety of construction projects. They rarely result in a quarter of a billion dollars in improvements," Benepe said, predicting that the effects of building the plant will pale in comparison to the burdens to be shouldered by residents of Manhattan's east side if and when work begins on the Second Avenue subway project.

How can he assure skeptical park protectors that the money will in fact be used for parks? That's another question raised by opponents and they say they've yet to receive a satisfactory answer. 

Benepe said the city can guarantee the funds. "The city will not be able to take these funds and reallocate them," because the money is coming from the sale of water board bonds, the revenues from which are not fungible, he said. "There would be a memorandum of understanding signed by city officials and perhaps by elected officials, and perhaps parks groups, which would spell out the projects to be built . . . " 

Park advocates still aren't convinced though. "We were told that lottery money was going to enhance education but it didn't," said Elizabeth Cooke, president of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, which has threatened to sue the city. "They simply cut state money and replaced it with lottery money. We were told that private money would enhance parks, [but] they cut city money as private money comes in. I have learned that what is said when they're trying to get groups to agree to something is very different than what happens five, six and seven years later when it's time to keep the promises."

Benepe promised the park improvements would be apparent before the plant was finished. "We would look to start right away," he said, vowing that there would be "significant projects in the ground in the next two years." 

Though he concedes it's not his area of expertise, Benepe volunteered that he thinks the plant itself is needed, citing a "municipal obligation to upgrade [the water system] on behalf of eight million citizens." And he is awed by the foresight of the city's long-ago leaders who "created one of the world's greatest drinking water systems." 

In the same vein, Benepe also sees a strong connection between the city's parks and its water system. "The park system and the water supply system have been joined at the hip for well over a hundred years," he said. "For people to say a water filtration plant is inconsistent with a park betrays a lack of knowledge with the history of parks across the city." There's been a give-and-take between the two but "parks benefited from the affiliation more than it has been hurt," he said. "We believe there's 1,000 acres of parkland that have been provided as part of the water supply system." 

Again, Cooke disagrees. "Historically, the connection of parks to the water supply that has provided us with reservoirs has been a compatible relationship," she said. "A water filtration plant, however, is a completely different animal. It is an industrial facility. Its operation will require deliveries of chemicals, special high-level security and other activities that are traditionally not placed in dense, residential communities or parks."

Benepe said he respects the work of advocates but thinks they're on the wrong track in this fight. "It's understandable that park advocates are cautious," he said. "They should be cautious and ask questions. But there's a point where caution crosses the line into obstruction. It's very easy to file court papers and litigate. But I think this is the moment in the city's history when planners and advocates say, 'what is our common destiny,' and 'what is important for the next century or two centuries?'"

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