Some ready to accept city's park proposal, others vow to fight on

Jerome Park Reservoir

By N. Clark Judd

Kingsbridge and Van Cortlandt Village community activists are divided over how to respond to a long-awaited plan for park improvements at Jerome Park Reservoir.

The plan, to be presented tonight, Thursday, Jan. 8, at a special meeting of Community Board 8’s parks and recreation committee, is expected to include, among other things, a sweeping transformation of Fort Independence Park. According to documents obtained by The Riverdale Press, the city Department of Parks and Recreation will show a master plan that would turn the reservoir’s Goulden Avenue side from a dusty construction site into a greensward, add benches and trees around the entire reservoir and encircle the reservoir’s outer fence with a jogging trail or running track.

But the $4.5 million currently appropriated for the project will only fund improvements to Fort Independence Park on the reservoir’s northern side, and along Sedgwick Avenue on the reservoir’s western border, according to Jerome Park Conservancy President Anne Marie Garti. She says the money — from the fund of over $200 million set aside for Bronx parkland as part of the deal struck to site the Croton water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park — will also be used to repair sidewalks along Sedgwick Avenue, something she believes shouldn’t be paid for with Croton funds.

And the eastern side of the reservoir would go without any attention unless the city found more funding.

“Only the white community is getting a park improvement,” Ms. Garti said. “Let’s put it out there straight ahead. Only the northern and western portions of the project are funded.”

Ms. Garti has said she’d like to reach a compromise with the city Department of Environmental Protection, which will use the reservoir to store untreated water from the Croton system, to allow visitors to get inside the fence and use a track at the water’s edge. She views the water’s edge at the reservoir as public space, not DEP property. For her, keeping the track outside the fence rather than allowing local residents in would be an appropriation of that space.

“We are in the schematic stage for the jogging trail around the Jerome Park Reservoir and will be presenting our designs to Community Board 8 on Thursday,” a Parks spokeswoman, Jesslyn Moser, said in a statement. “The current design was created taking into account the natural site restrictions as well as the community’s request that we build the perimeter pathway close to the reservoir’s edge and that we build as much of the pathway as possible.”

Much of the perimeter of the reservoir doesn’t belong to Parks, work along the reservoir’s eastern edge as part of the Croton filtration plant project is ongoing, and the project doesn’t have a whole lot of cash.

Tricky topography

Ms. Moser said in the statement that the DEP would have to tear up anything Parks installed along the northeastern edge of the reservoir in order to finish its work in the coming years. What’s more, she said, tricky topography on the reservoir’s slender southern border and a complicated approvals process to do any work on property Lehman College owns would make those parts of the project too expensive for Parks to accomplish, given the cash it has.

After years of fighting over the reservoir, the proposal from Parks is enough for Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association member Karen Argenti. She’d rather accept the proposed plan.

Under the conservancy plan, she said, “you’d have to sign in with the DEP, you’d have to go at specific times. People run around the reservoir night and day.”

Disappearing funds

Ms. Argenti is also worried that all funding for the project may disappear if community leaders don’t accept what’s already on the table.

“I’ve been fighting about Jerome Park Reservoir since 1984,” she said. “We want this thing done.”

Caught in the middle is Bob Bender, the chairman of Board 8’s parks committee.

Reached Monday, he would say only that he was looking forward to the city’s presentation. While he acknowledged the issues of public space and the placement of the jogging track, he wouldn’t comment on how Parks proposes to resolve them until after city officials have unveiled the plan.

“I hope they’ll do a good job on the renovation of Fort Independence Park, because that’s a heavily used park and it’s certainly in need of renovation too,” Mr. Bender said.

The Parks Department must bring its plans before the city’s Public Design Commission on Jan. 12, but can’t do so before giving Board 8 a chance to comment.

This is part of the January 8, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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