Comments of Elizabeth Cooke Levy

4 Alderbrook Road, Bronx, NY 10471

 ecooke.levy@verizon.net

 

Before the New York City Industrial Development Agency

September 6, 2007

Re: Proposed financing for Bronx Parking Development Company, LLC

 

 

I am submitting this statement on my own behalf, as a park advocate and as a Bronx tax-paying resident.  For identification purposes, I serve as a trustee of New Yorkers for Parks.

I oppose the use of public dollars to subsidize additional parking garages for the new stadium.  Public dollars should be used instead to facilitate and encourage use of public transportation.

Please consider the following three areas of concern:

Air Pollution   In recent months Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials have requested federal support for the adoption of their plan to discourage private vehicle use in Manhattan, south of 86th Street.  One of the Mayor’s stated goals is to reduce air-pollution.  Given that asthma rates are particularly high throughout Manhattan and the Bronx, the city and state should also be discouraging private-vehicle use for the vast majority of people traveling to Yankee Stadium.   

‘Public need’ has not been documented.  The proposed new garage(s) will not provide any form of ‘benefit’ to local or area residents or businesses.  The new garages would have connecting passageways into the new stadium, which are designed to increase Yankee corporate concession sales.  Patrons of these garages will be directed to enter the stadium through the passageways, which will facilitate sales at Yankee concession stands, and discourage purchase of goods or services from local shops.

Bronx Parking Development Company owners and managers are not-identified.    Community members should be informed and consulted, and board members appointed to BPDC  prior to the IDA review of their application.  A new entity asking for public subsidies should conduct itself in a ‘transparent’ manner; its leadership should be disclosed and they must be held accountable for corporate statements and actions.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.