Tenants Online 6/17/99 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ............................................................... Tenants Online 6/17/99 ----------------------------------------------------------------- EMERGENCY ALERTS: VALLONE'S LEAD PAINT BILL RENT GUIDELINES BOARD WATER FILTRATION PLANT IN VAN CORTLANDT PARK Rarely do critical issues arrive for hearings and votes at the same time, but next Monday and Tuesday are critical on several issues -- the Vallone Lead Paint Bill and the Rent Guidelines Board are essentially happening at the same time. It's not only a question of physical presence at these hearings, it's a matter of focus and energy for tenants. A third issue is also coming up at the same time, a proposal to build a water filtration plant in Vandt Cordtlandt Park in the Bronx. It's not so much a tenant issue, but one that affects neighborhoods, communities, our parks and how we treat open space in this city. We include information on this below. ----------------------------------------------------------------- VALLONE LEAD PAINT BILL HEARING ON MONDAY Emergency Alert! - Hearing of Vallone Lead Bill on Monday June 21! We have just received word that a meeting of the City Council's Housing and Buildings Committee has been set for this Monday, June 21, at City Hall on the Vallone Lead Bill! Apparently Vallone's staff has been playing with the time of the hearing -- first they said 11:00, then they said 10:00 am. At this point we're not sure when it will start, but when we verify it, we'll send out another notice. Also Vallone is trying to deflect responsibility by dropping it in the lap of Archie Spigner, Councilmember from Queens and Chair of the Housing and Buildings Committee -- who is a well-known Vallone apologist and landlord pawn. Remember, the original lead bill, Intro 205 -- was introduced by Stanley Michels from the Environmental Committee, not the Housing committee. Vallone has refused to release the latest version of his bill. However, we can expect it will be as bad as every draft we've seen thus far. You can see the latest public draft at http://tenant.net. WHAT YOU CAN DO 1) PLEASE ALERT EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO's INVOLVED IN THIS ISSUE. 2) The Housing Committee is Chaired by Archie Spigner, and includes Stanley Michels, Helen Marshall, Martin Malave-Dilan, Tracy Boyland, Larry Warden, Madeline Provenzano, Mike Nelso, and Thomas Ognibene. It is not a strong group for us. 3) You should focus phone calls on Michels and Marshall, to get them to push Intro 205, not the Vallone bill, and to push to get this meeting adjourned until we can get a reasonable amount of time to review a draft and prepare for a hearing. 4) You should focus as well on getting supportive council members who are not on the Housing Committee to come to the hearing, to ask questions, to push for Intro 205. Poeple like Lopez, Linares, Carrion, Perkins, Reed, DiBrienza,.... 5) You must begin preparing testimony AT ONCE ... that, among other things, notes the horrific process here, the failure of the Vallone bill to protect kids, the merits of Intro 205, etc... 6) We need to get as many civic, religious, labor, racial justice, community, health, environmental, etc. leaders and groups to weigh in on this. NOW --- we cannot wait. 7) Come the emergency strategy meeting tomorrow morning at NY State Trial Lawyers, 132 Nassau St., 2nd floor, at 9 a.m. If you can't come in person, they may be able to patch you in via speaker phone (212-349-5890). ----------------------------------------------------------------- RENT GUIDELINES BOARD Final Hearing, Tuesday June 22 Final Vote, Thursday June 24 For more information and proposed guidelines, go to: http://tenant.net/Oversight/RGBsum99/index.html THE RGB SCHEDULE (see below for tenant schedule) ---------------- FINAL PUBLIC HEARING Tuesday, June 22, 1999 The Great Hall at Cooper Union, Foundation Building 7 East 7th Street at 3rd Ave New York, NY 10003 Hotels 11:00 A.M.-1:00 P.M.& 6:30-7:30 P.M. Apartments 2:00 P.M.- 5:30 P.M. & 7:30 - 9:30 P.M. FINAL VOTE Thursday, June 24, 1999 The Great Hall at Cooper Union, Foundation Building 7 East 7th Street at 3rd Ave New York, NY 10003 5:00 P.M. - 9:30 P.M. TENANT SCHEDULE --------------- Tenants will have a demonstration at the Rent Guidelines Board hearing Tuesday June 22 11:00 a.m - 9:30 pm. Schedule: 11am - 1pm: SRO and hotel testimony, denounce proposed 5% increase for SRO's, backed by NYC Tourism Chief Fran Reiter who wants to convert SRO's to tourist hotels. Denounce elimination anti-warehousing and registration requirements. 1:30 pm: Press conference outside hearing, Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street "Landlords kick back unlawful rent increases through campaign contributions" 2:-5:30 pm: Apartment testimony. Denounce proposed 2% and 4% increases when owners' costs went up 0.03% [only after costs of June 1998 32B-32J settlement were atttributed at zero in 1998 and doubled in 1999] and profits went up 10% last year and 11% the year before. Demand Giuliani's puppets pull the string on the Poor Tax, the horrendous surcharge on low rent apartments that has reduced the number of stabilized apartments renting for under $500/month from 400,000 in 1993 to under 200,000 now even as poverty grips 1.8 million New Yorkers. 5:30-6:30 pm: Anti-Giuliani Demonstration outside hearing at Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street. Be creative and bring your passion! 6:30 to 9:30 pm [or whenever]: Continuation of testimony. Call RGB at 212/385-2934 ext.11. to sign up to testify, or just show up. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Issue: Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park (Here are two letters describing the issue and followed by "What You Can Do") The Parks Council The Urban Center 457 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10022 (212) 838-9410 June 3, 1999 Dear Friend of Parks: Re: Threat to Van Cortlandt Park and all City Parks You've probably heard about the city's plans to build a water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. But you may not be aware of the plant's physical impact on Van Cortlandt, or the dangerous precedent this industrial project sets for all city parks. The filtration plant will become a massive presence in one park. But its impact could be felt beyond the Bronx, making all parks vulnerable in the future to inappropriate uses. The City Council will hold a public hearing about the plant on June 22nd at 11:00 a.m. at City Hall. We urge you to attend the hearing to testify against placing an industrial plant in a public park and/or contact your City Council representative to express concern. Meanwhile, we are working with the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park to inform you about the project and answer any questions you may have. Impact on Van Cortlandt Park During construction, 23 acres of the park will be fenced and closed for a minimum of five years, and a six-story (55-77 foot-deep) pit will be carved from the earth by digging and blasting through bedrock. Approximately one billion cubic yards of soil and rock will be removed from the park, and a quarter of a million cubic yards of concrete will be poured in. The resulting noise, dust and traffic will affect the surrounding parkland, including a playground only a short distance from the construction site. The plant will permanently alter the topography of the area, which is an undulating, natural landscape that gently slopes up from street level. The plant will have a huge flat roof at a grade of 205 feet. (The existing slope varies in grade from 170 to no more than 200 feet.) To get the effect, image a huge structure in the park that is higher than the overhead subway that runs above Jerome Avenue - - with a golf driving range (and nets surrounding it) on the roof. Violation of Laws Protecting Parks City and state laws protect parks against non-park facilities such as the filtration plant. However, city officials maintain that legislative approval is not required in this case because the filtration plant will be placed underground and park activity will continue above. But after the plant is built, the park will not be the same. Essentially, the underground facility will be a four-story building covered by a thin layer of dirt. This mound will house an active industrial facility with thousands of pounds of chemicals trucked in and tens of thousands of pounds of solid sludge trucked out on a daily basis. These industrial operations are not compatible with parkland or nearby residential property uses. Viable Alternatives in Westchester Two Westchester towns, Mount Pleasant and Greenburgh, are offering alternative sites for the filtration plant. These sites, formerly occupied by Union Carbide, are already zoned for industrial use, and unlike Van Cortlandt Park, they are not surrounded by dense neighborhoods, parks and public schools. The major reason that the Mayor and the Department of Environmental Protection would like to place the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park is cost-containment. It will be less expensive to build the plant in the park than to build it on one of the alternative, appropriately zoned sites. We find this argument to be particularly threatening. It will always be less expensive to place problematic facilities and operations in parkland-because the city already owns the land. We hope you share our concern. This is not just another water supply facility, like the tunnels, valves or vents that already exist in some parks. If this chemical treatment plant is built in Van Cortlandt Park, we fear it will set a precedent that will haunt all city parks into the next century. In deciding where to build the filtration plant, the City Council will have to decide whether the city will place a higher value on saving money or on protecting its irreplaceable parkland. We urge you to join this debate. If you cannot attend the hearing, please ask your local City Council Member to oppose the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park, and, instead, thoroughly investigate the viable options for the plant in Westchester. Thank you for your support in this important matter. Sincerely, Elizabeth A. Cooke Executive Director The Parks Council --------------- Another Letter: --------------- Dear Friends of the Parks: Did you know that on June 29 the City Council may vote "Yes" to building a $700+ million dollar industrial plant in Van Cortlandt Park? If we don't take action now, the Council may well vote to support the most damaging action ever taken against NYC parklands. The plant in question is a chemical filtration system designed to filter city water obtained through the Croton Reservoir system. This is the very same plant that was successfully stopped from being sited in Jerome Park Reservoir. In a surprise move in December 1998, the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) named the Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortland Park as the new site for the plant. The construction of a major industrial complex in a city park will set a dangerous precedent and put the future of all city parks at risk. The plant, if built, will remove nearly 40 acres of park land from public use for at least 5-7 years during construction and will have serious health and quality-of-life effects on the people of Norwood, Bronx. This low-income minority community is already battling high rates of asthma, and the airborne dust and debris resulting from the blasting and gouging out of a 60-foot deep pit the size of at least 12 football fields could send asthma rates soaring. An estimated one million+ tons of earth and rock will be removed to make way for the chemical plant and parking lots. The chosen site is directly adjacent to residential areas and is near three hospitals; construction will entail years of blasting noise and traffic congestion from daily truck traffic in and out of the site. The operation of the plant is itself environmentally unfriendly. It will be a giant power user, gobbling up 15 megawatts of power a day. The chemical filtration process will use hundreds of thousands of gallons of five different toxic chemicals and produce tons of de-watered toxic sludge as a byproduct. These toxic chemicals will be trucked in and out to the plant on a daily basis. Croton water does not need to be filtered. It currently meets and exceeds all federal EPA health-related standards for drinking water. A proposed future standard which may never be adopted will not be met by Croton water, but can be dealt with through non-filtration alternative methods. Cryptosporidium has been found very rarely and at very low levels in Croton water, and has never been a problem there. Chlorine protects against Crytosporidium in our city's water. A filtration plant is not needed for public health reasons. It's construction, however, is desirable to those interests favorable to the construction industry and developers, and unfavorable to community gardens, parks, and the people who use these open spaces. It is the general public who will bear the burden of paying for filtration through the raising of water rates. Last, but not least, end-point filtration of the city's water supply is an open door to the proliferation of development in the watershed--malls, megastores, corporate parks, highways, housing developments-all of which have a negative impact on natural water bodies, and on forests and green open spaces. YOU can help prevent this travesty by urging City Council members to vote "NO"---it's easy: WHAT YOU CAN DO - FAST AND EASY 1. Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrar's office said they will have a news conference at 12:30 p.m., Monday 6/21. Anyone planning to attend -- in an official capacity -- should call Ferrar's office at (718) 537-3386 or 590-8787 by 4:00 p.m. Friday. 2. Urge members of the City Council and Peter Vallone to vote "No" on a filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park You can e-mail all of them (who have email) at: members@citycouncil.org. Names, districts, and contact information is at: www.council.nyc.us. Their e-mail addresses are hot buttons, so all you have to do is click the mouse and tell them what you think. (It's better to call them with the phone numbers on the same page as many council members don't even know what email is) 3. Tues., June 22, VERY, VERY IMPORTANT DEADLINE - Hearing at the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses. This committee will make a recommendation to the Land Use committee whether to vote YES or NO. Please attend the the hearing at 11 am at City Hall, Second floor. Committee members are: John D. Sabini, Chair sabini@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-6972 Adolfo Carrion, Jr. carrion@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7250 Bill Perkins perkins@council.nyc.ny.us. 212-788-7397 Michael J. Abel abel@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7357 Priscilla A. Wooten 718-272-3050 212-788-6859 4. Wed., June 23, ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL DEADLINE - Land Use Committee votes YES or NO on filtration. Committee members are: June M. Eisland, Chair eisland@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7084 Mary Pinkett pinkett@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7007 Archie Spigner spigner@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7069 Sheldon S. Leffler leffler@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-6850 Noach Dear dear@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7022 A. Gifford Miller miller@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-6873 Martmn Malavi-Dilan dilan@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7284 Guillermo Linares linares@council.nyc.ny.us 212-788-7354 John D. Sabini sabini@council.nyc.ny.us See June 22 above Adolfo Carrion, Jr. carrion@council.nyc.ny.us See June 22 above Bill Perkins perkins@council.nyc.ny.us See June 22 above Michael J. Abel abel@council.nyc.ny.us See June 22 above Herbert E. Berman 718-241-9330 212-788-6984 Jerome X. O'Donovan 718-727-9730 212-788-7098 Walter L. McCaffrey 718-639-1400 212-788-6957 Lawrence A. Warden 718-994-9951 212-788-7384 Priscilla A. Wooten See June 22 above Attend press conference on Monday, June 21, 12:30 pm, steps of City Hall. 5. Attend the "Hands Around the Park" rally, Saturday, June 26, 12 - 4 pm at Jerome Ave. and Gunn Hill Road near the proposed site. For information on speakers, music, food, etc., call the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park at (718) 601-1460 or the Mosholu Woodlawn South Community Coalition at 718-655-1054. Subway: IRT #4 Mosholu Ave, walk north 2-3 blocks. See Norwood News (www.bronxmall.com/norwoodnews/ongoing/) and www.walrus.com/~klotz Other contacts: Jennifer Ritter at the NW Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition at 718-299-7895 and Frank Eadie of the Sierra Club, (212) 243-2319. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tenant Network(tm) for Residential Tenants TenantNet(tm): http://tenant.net email: tenant@tenant.net NYtenants(tm) Discussion List: email to majordomo@list.tenant.net and in the body of the message put "subscribe nytenants". Information from TenantNet is from experienced non-attorney tenant activists and is not considered legal advice. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytnyc-06.23.99-11:42:45-21990