City Softens Stumbling Blocks In Their Coney Parkland Plans

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Over the past few months the city has been meeting with property owners and has made changes to their plan announced by Mayor Bloomberg last November, reports The New York Times.

The revised plan is the result of meetings with local property owners and others since November.

But in a departure from the original plan unveiled in November by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, those owners would be able to develop the remaining parts of their property themselves as long as they followed the city’s master plan, which must still undergo an environmental review and a land-use review.

“I’m guardedly optimistic,” said Jesse Masyr, a real estate lawyer for Thor Equities, which has been at loggerheads with the Bloomberg administration. “We have to look at the size of sites we have left and what we could build.”“We’re optimistic,” Mr. Vourderis said. “We’re hoping that they’re going to let us develop our own roperties.”

The “stars may finally be realigning,” said Brooklyn’s borough president, Marty Markowitz, a longtime advocate of revitalizing Coney Island.

The Gowanus Lounge writes:

There are more details to the changes, but it's safe to characterize them as a major reversal in that it would cut the amusement park envisioned by the original proposal by nearly half and would allow hotels along Surf Avenue.

This discussion can be followed on the Coney Island USA message board.


City’s Coney Island Design Revised to Break Deadlock [The New York Times]
City Makes Huge Change to Its Coney Plan [The Gowanus Lounge]