Public Hearing on the city’s rezoning plan for Coney Island.



Tuesday, March 3rd, 6:30pm

Lincoln High School
2800 Ocean Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11235

Map and directions:
http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/21/K410/AboutUs/MapsAndDirections/default.h...

Is the meeting still on for tomorrow?

The meeting went on till 1030pm. There were a number of standout speeches including Juan Rivero of Save Coney, Fred Kahl of CIUSA, Stewart Pertz of MAS, David Finkelstein of ACE and of course Dick Zigun of CIUSA and Charles Denson of CIHP. Also our "Thunderbolt Kin."  There were 90 people who signed up to speak, including many good speakers whom I don't know.


Will be interesting to see what the press's take on it will be.  NY1 stayed till the very end, interviewing people in the lobby.

Capt_Nemo wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2009, 10:38pm:


yeah, that was a great moment!!!! Capt. Nemo you must've been closeby, 'cause I heard that comment too  there were some great speeches tonight, to be sure.

i have some video I took.  The sound was better then in the past, but still not good, will post some video when I get the chance of massyr and such.

Bruce

I just recorded the people I knew, not everyone.

Bruce

This meeting proved what I have said all along, the locals think they are owed something instead of getting off their lazy asses and Lola Staar as I have said all along is not anyone to be heading up something called Save Coney Island. This is now two times in a row at Lincoln that her name has been called and she is a no show. Like I've said all along she's an opportunist and a joke. I guess she was out being fabulous.

Brooklyn Papers article:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/32/9/32_9_mm_coney.html

Coney’s future collides with current realities at hearing
BY MIKE MCLAUGHLIN
The Brooklyn Paper

Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to reshape Coney Island’s ramshackle “People’s Playground” with rides, attractions, hotels and thousands of apartments collided with scores of critics in the first public hearing of the controversial plan on Tuesday night.

Residents, merchants, amusement enthusiasts and good ol’ Coney freaks crammed the Lincoln HS auditorium on Ocean Parkway to denounce — and, in fewer cases, endorse — Bloomberg’s vision, which includes creating a city-owned theme park bordered by privately built hotels and year-round attractions like bowling alleys and movie theaters in the area between Keyspan Park and the Cyclone roller coaster.

“This plan was significantly watered down and the interests of the amusement industry were betrayed,” argued Dick Zigun, the founder of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow.

Zigun supported the city’s initial proposal for a 15-acre amusement park, but that plan became bogged down in a dispute between Bloomberg and neighborhood’s principal landowner Joe Sitt, who did not want to sell his beachfront property to the city for the new amusement park.

To break the impasse, the city decreased the area for outdoor rides to nine acres and enlarged the zone for private developers.

In response, Zigun resigned from the Coney Island Development Corporation in protest last year.

But other carnies lauded the city’s attempt to attract investment in the sand-swept pleasure zone, home to many empty lots by loosening the definition of amusement zoning to allow more attractions besides rides.

“The plan is a step, if not a leap, in the right direction,” said Dennis Vourdaris, the owner of Deno’s Wonder Wheel, the only remaining theme park in Coney Island since Astroland closed last year. The owner of Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand, a historic site at the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues, also expressed his support in a statement read by his spokesman, George Shea.

Pessimistic observers, who have seen other Coney revitalization projects come and go through the decades, said this plan to restore the faded playground’s past glory won’t get off the ground either.

“The pie-in-the-sky promises of the current rezoning are all too familiar,” said Charlie Denson, who wrote the seminal local history book “Coney Island Lost and Found.”

A core battle has been over what variety of rides, attractions and hotels would be permitted, but for many Coney Island residents this is a fight to improve their neighborhood which is beset with high crime rates, poverty and limited employment opportunities.

“I’m for the redevelopment of Coney Island — but [fix] the west end first!” an area resident, Ken Jones, said to applause.

Many other Coney denizens said the city’s plan neglected their hardscrabble corner of the neighborhood, while others supported the Bloomberg plan, because of the prospect of construction jobs and later, permanent employment from the rides, hotels and retail outlets that crop up.