Queens lawmaker lays out plan for city parks
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City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan (center) was joined by a number of lawmakers, including Queens Borough President Donovan Richards (right), to announce his five-point plan to fund and upgrade the city’s parks in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Monday, March 14, 2022. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
A number of Queens lawmakers and advocates called on the mayor to make the city’s parks a little greener, in more ways than one, on Monday.
Led by City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation, the lawmakers gathered in front of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park called for $1 billion in funding for the Parks Department in this year’s budget. If allocated, the funds would potentially make up around 1 percent of the city’s nearly $100 billion budget.
“We cannot afford any less for our parks right now,” Krishnan said.
The funding request isn’t unheard of – Mayor Eric Adams vowed to dedicate 1 percent of the city’s budget to the Parks Department when he was running for office, signing a pledge from nonprofit organization New Yorkers for Parks.
But when he issued his preliminary budget last month, the funds were missing. In total, Adams’ budget dedicates around $500 million to the department, making up around 0.5 percent of the city’s overall budget.
It’s not only Adams who hasn’t followed through on the promise. The organization first issued the pledge two decades ago. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed it but, like Adams, didn’t include the funds in his budget.
Additionally, the department was slapped with an $84 million cut in 2020, when the pandemic forced a number of budget cutbacks throughout city government – those funds, and more, were restored in 2021 when the department’s budget was increased to a little over $600 million.
“Within three weeks of the budgets getting cut during the pandemic, our parks were in the worst condition that they had seen in 20 years,” said Adam Ganser, the executive director of New Yorkers for Parks. “We are operating on the thinnest of margins.”
On Sunday, Adams announced the restarting of over 100 parks projects put on hold during the pandemic. He said that while the funds weren’t made available in his budget, he was “confident” that they would eventually.
“COVID threw us all off our game,” Adams said. “But this is early, it’s the first budget, the preliminary budget, and the goal is to get to that 1 percent. I’m a big believer in parks.”
“We’ll get there,” he added.
The budget request came as part of Krishnan’s five-point plan for the city’s parks, which was praised by a number of lawmakers and advocates Monday, including Queens City Councilmembers Linda Lee, Sandra Ung and Robert Holden, as well as Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.
“This is a borough of parks,” Richards said. “From Flushing Meadows to Alley Pond, Astoria to Kissena, Cunningham to Roy Wilkins and beyond – but for entire communities in Queens, especially in Councilmember Krishnan’s district, in my former district in Southeast Queens, having extensive green space is a dream, not a reality.”
“That’s why we need this five-point plan,” he added. “Show us the money.”
Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, also called on the city to plant 1 million trees by 2030, provide waterfront access across the five boroughs, upgrade playgrounds throughout the city and to create a Parks Construction Authority to expedite and potentially minimize the cost of park projects.
Stalled and expensive park projects have plagued the city for years, the lawmakers said, a sentiment Adams agrees with.
On Sunday, the mayor announced that over 100 park projects that were stalled as a result of the pandemic will resume construction in the coming months. The projects will also get a $417 million capital investment, Adams said.
“New York City’s parks aren’t luxuries, but necessities — playing a critical role building community and nurturing our physical, mental, and emotional health,” Adams said. “Parks can be the great equalizers, which is why every New Yorker, regardless of zip code or color, deserves access to a park.”
But, according to Krishnan, a Parks Construction Authority, which would be similar to the city’s School Construction Authority, is necessary to stopping delays from occurring in the first place.
“The capital construction process when it comes to parks in our city is simply broken,” the lawmaker said. “On average, it takes seven to eight years to build one park in New York City. The cost of bathrooms like at Marcus Garvey Park on Elmhurst was about $4 million and they still aren't fully accessible or finished.”
“It is more crucial than anything else that we can build parks back in this city, and that is why creating a Parks Construction Authority will transform the way that we invest in our parks and the way that we build them,” he added.
Krishnan and his colleagues painted the need to improve the city’s parks as an equity issue.
New Yorkers flocked to parks and open space during the early days of the pandemic and the space was a luxury for some and difficult to find for others, they said.
Krishnan’s own district ranks as one of the neighborhoods with the least amount of park space per capita. As a result, a chunk of 34th Avenue in the neighborhood was turned into an Open Street at the start of the pandemic.
Heralded as the “gold standard” of Open Streets by the Department of Transportation and the new mayoral administration, the project has seen a number of opponents who claim community input wasn’t taken into account when designating the street open, among other concerns.
Krishnan, who wasn’t in office when the Open Street first began, is hoping to turn the 1.3 mile stretch into a linear park, he told the Eagle.
“Our Open Streets are an issue of public space, of green space, of pedestrian safety, and the way to really create more green space is to take advantage of the opportunities we have with our Open Streets, beginning with 34th Avenue,” Krishnan said.
Several weeks ago, Adams and DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez went on a walking tour of the Open Street with Krishnan, who said the goal was to show the officials the need to continue to work to permanently make the block a linear park.
“The time to really transform this park is now in this budget,” Krishnan said. “Now is the time to do so.”
