YONKERS PHASE 1 - DOWNTOWN REHABILITATION
OPEN SPACE-POPULATION DENSITY ANALYSIS
February 19, 2007
Compiled by: Terry Joshi
Park Hill Land Conservancy, Inc.
COMPARISON OF THE
PHASE 1 SCOPING DOCUMENT AND THE NRPA STANDARDS AND GUILDELINES
1. National Recreation and Park Association (www.nrpa.org)
The National Recreation and Park Association’s nationally recognized standards and guidelines recommend that an urban municipality provide a minimum average of between 6.5 – 10.5 acres of open space per 1000 residents. (NRPA provides a wide latitude in its definition of open space: everything from golf courses, vest pocket parks, ball fields, and passive parkland, to small neighborhood playgrounds, wilderness areas and conservancies. Sidewalks, esplanades and walkways are not considered open space within the classification system developed by the NRPA.
2. Yonkers – current open space
Based on a Yonkers city population of approximately 200,000 residents, the city should have 1600 acres of open space if one uses an average of eight acres from the NRPA ratio cited in (1) above.
Based on the Yonkers Parks Department’s own analysis, the city is woefully under-served with open space. In 1989, the last year for which city-compiled data is available, the Yonkers Citiwide Parks System contained approximately 400 developed and undeveloped acres. (Even when factoring in county parkland within the city borders, the city was still under the proposed ratio by at least 500 acres.)
Based on a 2004 Westchester County open space acreage by municipality report, Yonkers ranks third in an open space comparison with New Rochelle and White Plains.
3. Palisades Point
SFC plans to build 436 apartments at Palisades Point. Assuming an average of 1 ½ persons per apartment, that is a total of 654 new residents on Parcels H&I. Current plans call for 3.1 acres of open space.
Based on the NRPA standard, at least 5.28 acres of open space should be provided for Palisades Point new residents alone.
4. River Walk Center
SFC plans to build 950 apartments at River Walk Center. Assuming an average of 1 ½ persons per apartment, that is a total of 1425 new residents at the former Chicken Island site. The City Council scoping document does not show any provision for open space other than along the margins of the daylighted Saw Mill between Elm and New Main Streets.
Based on NRPA standards, there should be a minimum of eleven+ acres of new open space at the River Walk Center alone.
Summary:
The woeful lack of citywide open space represents a significant quality-of-life issue for city residents, particularly those in the southwestern quadrant where apartment living is the norm. Without even addressing the issue of our current open space shortfall of 1200 acres of city-owned open space, we should at the very least consider the fact that to meet accepted standards we should provide over sixteen acres of open space for just the additional population created by River Park and Palisades Point as they are currently envisioned.
