By Alex Ginsberg
Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) and City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe told members of the Udalls Cove Preservation Committee Saturday that they would not give up the fight to save privately owned portions of the park from development.
But to do that, they are going to have to come up with $1 million, at a time when even a few drops are difficult to wring from an already dry budget.
“Rest assured that you have my support,” Avella told the 120 supporters who turned out for the meeting in Udalls Cove Park in Douglas Manor. “I think you all know that I'm not afraid to fight with the mayor to get that money.”
Those in attendance laughed at the councilman's reference to his recent clashes with Mayor Michael Bloomberg over the mayor's 18.5 percent property tax increase.
The meeting took place in the park just south of Udalls Cove, a small inlet nestled between Douglas Manor to the west and Little Neck and Great Neck to the east. About 70 acres of undeveloped land – some held by the city, some by the state and some by private owners – straddle both sides of the inlet and stretch south past the Long Island Rail Road tracks to Northern Boulevard.
Members of the committee do not want to see developers build on the privately owned portion, which constitutes about two-thirds of the area south of the tracks, according to committee president Walter Mugdan. That area, though small, contains a creek that brings fresh water to the nearby Aurora Pond.
“Right now only 1.5 to two acres are immediately threatened,” he said in an interview. “But it will all fall like a house of cards. We'll have 50, 60, even 70 more houses, and the quality and the quantity of the water coming through there will be affected.”
To save that land from a proposed 18-home development, the city and state will have to find a way to come up with enough money to purchase the land before any building can occur. Mugdan said that would be $1 million to head off the most immediate development project and an additional $2 million in the future to stop projects that are planned.
More than 120 members of the preservation committee stood in steady rain Saturday morning to hear that message. Nearly everyone present signed a petition urging Bloomberg to restore funding for the project, before splitting off to clean trash and litter from different parts of the park.
But Benepe made no promises, saying only that the restoration of Aurora Pond would go forward. The pond, which was one acre until a botched dredging effort in the early 1990s reduced it to little more than a stagnant pool, sits north of the tracks just off Sandhill Road. Following the restoration, Mugdan said, it should be about 0.8 acres.
Padavan, who said he had attended Udalls Cove clean-up events for the past 31 years, pledged to pursue the issue in Albany.
“We're going to do our best to get our hands on some state money to help the commissioner out,” he told the group.
Mugdan expressed confidence that the public officials' efforts would be successful.
“With their help we're going to be able to accomplish what everybody here wants them to accomplish, which is the preservation of what we've got left,” he told the crowd.
But given the difficult condition of both the city's and the state's financial situation, finding any money could be difficult.
“We're going to try,” Avella said in an interview. “We are in a fiscal crisis. But we have to use the money now, because of the development pressure.”
Padavan expressed similar caution about his efforts with the legislature and the governor.
“To get our hands on that kind of money out of left field like that,” he said. “It won't be the easiest thing in the world.”
Reach reporter Alex Ginsberg by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
