Thursday, February 14, 2008

Public Hearing - Yonkers - Alexander Street Plan

Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club - Photo Hosted at Buzznet
Inside the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club Boathouse

Happy Valentine's Day, all!

And what could be more romantic than a nice, cozy Public Hearing?

Terribly short notice of course but if you happen to live in the Yonkers vicinity, well, they're talkin' 'bout YOUR waterfront. The thing of particular interest to area kayakers is that the plan has been revised - at one point the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club was in the plan at it's current location - this one talks about maybe moving them.

There also seems to be a wall of very big apartment buildings involved. ScenicHudson.org has a nice writeup on what they see as the good & bad points of the plan.

I'm not going to take a stance on this, I put out some feelers to friends in Yonkers and the range of responses I got ran the gamut from "the city likes us, this is just an oversight & it will all get worked out" to versions where the city has been jollying the club along until it was time to sell out to the developers. I expect the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes & I'm not in a position to find out, so I can't take sides.

But I may go try to hear for myself what's said (TQ & I were postponing Valentine's Day until the weekend anyways, Thursdays never work for us).

Full information about the meeting can be found here, on yonkersny.gov.

They're also taking comments, so even if you can't make the meeting, you can still say something. I'd sent a short note just saying I'm a fan of the YPRC to Daisy Colon, and she sent the following response -

Thank you for your comments. The public comments have been extended to Monday February 25th. The Yonkers Community Development Agency will also have another public hearing on Thursday February 14th at 6:30pm in the Ceremonial Courtroom.
Ps. I do believe that consideration to the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club situation will be addressed.

Daisy Colon
Special Project Coordinator
Department of Planning & Development
87 Nepperhan Avenue, Room 312
Yonkers, NY 10701
(914) 377-6650 fax (914) 377-6672
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
email: daisy.colon@yonkersny.gov


I think she meant the situation would be addressed at the meeting, not addressed as in "we're going to take care of it". I actually mistook it for the 2nd meaning & emailed some little burble of joy back & she immediately got back to me with "No guarantees!" & I realized I was possibly misreading it for the response I wanted to hear.

BTW to continue with our Dutch heritage discussion - which I'm thoroughly enjoying - Yonkers is another one, Jack G up at the YPRC told me it was originally the estate of the "Jonk heer", "the young heir" or "the young sir".

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