By Howard Koplowitz
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) rolled out an initiative this month that will come up with ideas on how to enhance the city’s waterfront.
Dan Andrews, spokesman for Borough President Helen Marshall, said the Department of City Planning briefed Marshall on the goals of the project, called the New York City Waterfront Vision and Enhancement Strategy, or WAVES.
“Obviously, we have a lot of interest in it,” Andrews said, noting the increase in development along the waterfront in the borough. “We’ve seen tremendous growth on the waterfront — both in Rockaway and western Queens on the East River” — he said, where Arverne East is undergoing development along with Queens West in the western part of the borough.
The WAVES initiative includes a comprehensive waterfront plan that will include long-term goals for the city’s shoreline in the next decade and the waterfront action agenda, which will look at ideas that can be implemented within the next three years.
WAVES will soon be undergoing a public review period and may include recommendations on where to place ferry services and how to use the waterfront for recreation, Andrews said.
“The borough president is supportive of the fact that it’s a comprehensive plan,” he said, noting the initiative will combine how to use open space in areas where housing developments are going up, including Hunter’s Point South.
“It’s a balancing act with the development and the open space,” Andrews said.
The plan will also have implications for Willets Point, which sits on waterfront land and was part of the more than 700 acres of vacant or underused waterfront land the city has rezoned since 2002.
Bloomberg said the WAVES program will also try to expand some of the goals of PlaNYC, which provides a sustainability plan for the city through the year 2020.
He said the initiative will work alongside efforts made by the city Department of Environmental Protection, through which the city is in the process of a $5 billion upgrade to increase capacity and effectiveness at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in western Queens.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at or by phone at 718-260-4573.
