By Chris Fuchs
With only one board member voting against the motion, Community Board 7 Monday night approved the city’s acquiring of Fort Totten, a 99-acre military base in Bayside, from the federal government with the long-term goal of developing it into public parkland.
The vote Monday night was the first step in what will likely be a lengthy project to convert the military base, built in the 1860s, into a vast greenspace designed in a vein similar to that of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It is now occupied by the U.S. Coast Guard, the Fire Department, nonprofit groups, Little Leagues and soccer clubs.
City officials said they plan on having the acquisition completed by the end of this year and that it could take up to seven years before the base is entirely developed.
CB 7 covers Flushing, Whitestone, College Point, Bay Terrace and Fort Totten.
After more than three hours of discussion, Community Board 7 in Flushing voted 31-to-1 to approve the acquisition but with several conditions: first, that the city would allow not-for-profit groups like the Queens Women Center to continue operating on the base and second, that the city establish an oversight board through which any request to demolish a building in Fort Totten be made.
The one board member who voted against the motion, Peter Lane, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Three board members abstained from voting since two of them work for the Fire Department and one for the Parks Department, two city agencies involved in the development of Fort Totten.
For more than five years, plans to turn Fort Totten into parkland have been bandied about, although setbacks such as the discovery of mercury in Little Bay have cast light on what health effects, if any, this would have on potential parkgoers. Given the many buildings on the military base that enjoy landmark status, some civic activists appeared concerned over whether such buildings would be razed without regard to their historical significance.
But Adrian Joyce, chairman of the committee that presented the proposal to the entire community board, said many board members were getting ahead of themselves by raising questions about whether there would be ample parking, for instance, for the more than 400,000 visitors expected to visit the park each year. Joyce took issue with that estimate from city officials, saying it was “smoke and mirrors.”
“They’re hoping in a perfect world that they would have 400,000 visitors,” he said. Apart from the proposed parkland, a portion of Fort Totten will be used as a training ground by the Fire Department to supplement Randalls Island, a parcel out in the East River now used by the FDNY to train new firefighters. That part of the base in the easternmost portion of the peninsula would use existing buildings to teach new firefighters in an academic setting.
Although the vote was approved with two conditions, Joyce said it was unlikely the city would honor its first request to allow some non-profit groups to remain on the base once the land is acquired. One such group, he said, was Queens Women Center. But the Bayside Historical Society, another non-profit group that gives tours of the base, would likely be permitted to stay, Joyce said, because of their relationship to the base.
The interim lease signed by the Queens Women’s Center says the group cannot stay on the base without submitting another application. Other groups, such as the Bayside Historical Society, that seek space are subject to the approval of the city Parks Department.
The request for an oversight committee, Joyce said, was sort of gratuitous since one already exists. The committee, Fort Totten Restoration Advisory Board, a 15-member panel, examines such issues as whether a building with landmarked status may be demolished or altered.
It was still unclear what impact, if any, the cleanup of mercury on 9.6 acres of the fort might have on the overall development of the base. Joyce said the board was still awaiting an environmental study. But since 1997, more than $1.3 million has been spent cleaning up mercury, found in floor drains of a building owned by the U.S. Coast Guard and in the sediment of Little Bay.
Joyce said one of the proposals for the base is to build a restaurant, which could be affected if it is concluded that the mercury levels near the site are so high as to pose a risk to humans.
Reach reporter Chris Fuchs by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
