sustainableflatbush.org

Tonight is the final workshop meeting of Imagine Flatbush 2030, the community visioning project created by Municipal Arts Society and Flatbush Development Corporation to “assist in creating neighborhood sustainability goals and tools to measure progress toward consensus-based goals”. As this stage of the project comes to a close (along with, presumably, Municipal Arts Society’s direct involvement), many neighborhood stakeholders (including Sustainable Flatbush) are eager to know how we can participate in working toward the goals that have been discussed in the workshops: preserving and expanding affordable housing, making streets more pedestrian-friendly (especially for children, seniors, and the disabled), establishing indoor and outdoor spaces for community gatherings, supporting locally-owned businesses, promoting a neighborhood arts scene, and more. For those of us who live, work, and study here in Flatbush and have a vested interest in its future, tonight will be our opportunity to establish how we will move forward with this collective vision of neighborhood sustainability.

Imagine Flatbush 2030 from MAS on Vimeo.

Tonight’s meeting is at 6pm in the Brooklyn College Student Center, 6th floor, East 27th Street and Campus Road. Childcare is available and refreshments will be served.

Sustainable Flatbush has just endorsed a new report on NYC energy policy and climate change response from Sierra Club NYC Group. The report praises PlaNYC while declaring that we need to go much further in order to address the increasing pace of climate change along with energy volatility:

Government sustainability initiatives may have greater success when framed as responses to energy volatility than to climate change. In the short term, expanding capacity margins through energy conservation will make the City more resilient to volatility, while expediting PlaNYC initiatives. In the long term, we need to push discussion far past PlaNYC’s current goals, and start building a post-petroleum economy now.

The good news is that a national project to make clean energy cheap can restore domestic manufacturing, create millions of jobs that can’t be outsourced, and stimulate the economy, while improving our quality of life and mitigating climate change. New York City’s leadership can help make such policy actions a reality, while ensuring a better future for our citizens. What’s the next step for New York City?

Here’s a link to the summary version (the whole report is 50 pages long!).

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia and a legendary figure in the Livable Streets movement, speaks here with transit activists Commuters United for Transportation Equity (COMMUTE). If you care about our city’s future and particularly the mobility of low-income New Yorkers, have a look.

Lots of interesting local developments occurred during my two-week foray into the world of Carnaval in Brazil (still catching up!), and here’s one of my favorites: NYC is seeing the light on addressing the Combined Sewer Overflow problem – where even a minor rainfall can send sewage into our waterways and beaches – through progressive and sustainable practices. The City Council passed legislation to create a Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan, and it looks like they’ve been listening to the right people (as opposed to following the Department of Environmental Protection’s more expensive and less effective end-of-pipe plans designed to deal with sewer overflow after it occurs). Environmental organization Riverkeeper has previously presented a report showing that the most cost-efficient way to mitigate excess stormwater is by capturing it at the source through simple infrastructure such as parks, trees, green roofs and rainwater collection systems. How great is it when the least expensive solution to a problem also provides significant quality-of-life benefits?

“This local law is good for the City’s environment and makes sound economic sense,” said Basil Seggos, Riverkeeper’s Chief Investigator. “By regarding stormwater as a resource for irrigating the landscape, we not only improve water quality, but also capture all the added economic benefits of green infrastructure, including cooler streets, reduced energy costs (by reducing building cooling needs), cleaner air, sequestration and reduction of global warming pollution, flood mitigation, and more livable communities.”

Follow the link below to read the complete press release…
(more…)

City Room reports that yesterday’s public hearing on congestion pricing at Hunter College placed two more groups on the supporting side: the Transit Workers’ Union, and a coalition called Communities United for Transportation Equity (aka CommUTe). Representatives of the latter group presented strong arguments for charging private motor vehicles to enter Manhattan’s Central Business District and allocating the revenue toward public transit improvements:

“The mass-transit system is failing those of us who need it the most, while truck and car-related infrastructure running through our neighborhoods wreaks havoc on our health. Having a long commute takes away time from families and communities, and poor transit access means poor job access because you can’t take a job that you can’t get to,” said Silvett Garci­a, an official at Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, a nonprofit group in the Soundview section of the Bronx.

The group called not only for congestion pricing as a way to finance mass transit and reduce traffic, but also for the city to hasten its plans to start a bus rapid transit program. Bus rapid transit, or B.R.T., is a catch-all term for innovations like bus designated lanes, special traffic signals that are programmed to prioritize buses, and bus stops that are few in number and spread out across high-volume stations where passengers pay their fares before getting on board.

“A congestion pricing plan increases investment while reducing pollution, and B.R.T. is the fair, fast and necessary way to reach the transit dependent – those who live or work in the gaps of the subway system and who cannot afford a car, cab or premium commuting fare, the elderly, and the handicapped,” said Cynthia Doty, organizer for the West Harlem/Morningside Heights Sanitation Coalition, another community organization. “As the congestion pricing debate moves from the commission to the city and state legislatures, we should focus on the half million working-class New Yorkers with treacherous commutes.”

It’s been said here before: 97.3% of Brooklyn’s workers (those who do not commute alone to the Central Business District in Manhattan by private car) would be positively affected by the transit improvements that revenue from congestion pricing is targeted to fund; and B.R.T. is a quickly-implementable transit innovation — already hugely successful in Curitiba (Brazil), Singapore, and Bogota, amongst other cities — that would be life-altering for many New Yorkers. Hopefully this re-framing of the debate will reveal politicians’ disingenuous “pro-working class” rhetoric for the smokescreen that it is, and shed some light on the reality of who stands to benefit most from congestion pricing.

For the transportation geeks among us (yes, I’m one!), this should be a very interesting panel discussion coming up on January 28th. I am familiar with the work of Aaron, Christine and Elizabeth, and those three alone are worth the “price” of admission.

Moderated by Aaron Naparstek of Streetsblog, this panel discussion featuring New York City’s most successful neighborhood change-makers will provide inspiring and practical lessons about how New Yorkers can transform the public realm.

Panelists include Christine Berthet (Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety), Joshua David (Friends of the High Line), Penny Lee (Department of City Planning), Milton Puryear (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative), Paul Steely White (Transportation Alternatives), Robert Witherwax (Grand Army Plaza Coalition), Elizabeth Yeampierre, (UPROSE) and Chauncy Young (Highbridge Community Life Center).

New York Historical Society, 2 W. 77th St.
January 28th
6pm Panel
8pm Reception and Exhibit

Seating is very limited; please RSVP at nycstreets.org/uws
This event is free and open to the public.

The NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign, a partnership between Transportation Alternatives, The Open Planning Project and Project for Public Spaces, is committed to inspiring and engaging New Yorkers to reclaim their streets as the core of healthy communities where individuals of all ages can safely walk, play and gather

I just read about this on a blog called Community Based Planning, where the question is posed: “Could Formula Retail Zoning be in NYC’s Future?” A group called the East Village Community Coalition is spearheading an effort to protect their neighborhood from further takeover by Starbuck’s et al.

Since commercial uses in NYC are already regulated by zoning, and considering the recent attention to this issue and concerns that chain stores are pushing out small businesses and causing NYC to lose its character, is this an idea whose time has come?

Zoning has proven to be a hot topic around our area these days, as the recent Imagine Flatbush 2030 community visioning meetings have illustrated. Landmarking vs. no landmarking, upzoning (denser development near transit, generally perceived as sustainable) vs. downzoning (preserving century-old Victorian homes, generally regarded as an asset even by us apartment dwellers), more/different amenities vs. retaining the neighborhood’s diversity and character… similar conflicts and discussions are taking place all over the city. What’s your view?

photo by Community Based Planning

2007 was the first fully operation year for Sustainable Flatbush, and I must say we accomplished a lot. Starting with our Kickoff Meeting on March 16th at Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore, the goal was to find people in the neighborhood who wanted to work on sustainability issues locally. To my amazement, 25 people braved a blizzard to attend this event, and we had a great discussion where some common interests and goals were defined. (Full disclosure: to boost attendance I scheduled this event one week after my birthday and combined it with a party… but at least half the people there were new faces to me!)

Park(ing) Day on Cortelyou Road (story below!). Photo by Keka

For our second event we celebrated Bike Month with a program of Streetfilms (curated by yours truly) and a guest appearance by their creator Clarence Eckerson. In keeping with our theme of overcoming weather challenges, Clarence’s flight from the West Coast was delayed by severe rains and while waiting for him we conducted a discussion on Congestion Pricing with Livable Streets luminaries Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives and Aaron Naparstek of Streetsblog. Clarence’s honorarium was a vegan cupcake.

Event #3, an Urban Permaculture Lecture with former Flatbush residents Wilton Duckworth and Joan Ewing of Green Phoenix, packed Vox Pop with permaculture enthusiasts who exchanged ideas on how to apply this sustainable design practice to city living.

Then we worked with Lower East Side Ecology Center to create the first e-waste recycling event south of Prospect Park: Cortelyou Road Electronics Recycling diverted a truck full of discarded technology (and its accompanying toxins) from the landfill. Many thanks to Christina Datz-Romero for her pioneering work to make New York City more sustainable through LESEC’s recycling and composting programs, and for helping me stake out the perfect spot to park the big red dumpster.

In July we teamed up with the Green Edge Collective for Event #4, Eating Sustainably: a meetup and discussion on Sustainable Food. The Green Edge ladies, known for their Eco-Eatery tours and Supper Club community potlucks, kept the discussion lively as topics ranged from healthy food shopping to plastic bags to the environmental implications of consumption. Lots of food for thought (ouch).

I spent most of August on the West Coast, playing music, visiting family, and touring Oregon’s Willamette Valley by bicycle with a group of sustainability-minded vegans. Who knew quinoa was such a useful grain?

We started Autumn off right by participating in the neighborhood’s biggest street festival, the Flatbush Frolic, with a table full of materials promoting recycling. Eve Martinez from the Department of Sanitation’s NYC WasteLess program brought her full compliment of recycling stickers, brochures, posters, and fridge magnets. (What’s a street fair without fridge magnets?) We got to know our neighbors and I scored my new favorite T-shirt.

On September 21st Park(ing) Day was celebrated all over New York City, the U.S., and Planet Earth… including right here in Flatbush. We occupied a parking space and created a park for the day, complete with real grass, trees, a bench, art supplies, live music… and lots of people, especially kids! (See photo above.) Naturally Streetfilms covered this event, and Cortelyou Road Park is featured in their piece… check it out! This event’s special thanks go to Lindsey Lusher of Transportation Alternatives, who coordinated resources and information for almost two dozen sites all over NYC, and especially to Keka Marzagão, without whom Cortelyou Road Park simply would not have been possible! In addition to providing every possible form of support (moral, creative, physical), Keka insisted that we have real grass, which provided endless wonderment and joy to everyone who visited our park.

Okay, so in October we recuperated. By November we were ready to kick off a whole new level of activities with our Town Hall Meeting. 25 people attended (our magic number, perhaps!), and six committees were established, each with specific goals and projects. We are now holding monthly meetings where newcomers can get involved and committees report on their plans. 2008 already looks exciting, with the R3 Committee’s Post-Holiday Electronics Recycling Event coming up this weekend, the Gardening Committee planning a Spring event in conjunction with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Livable Streets Committee working on a Transportation Conference with Center for the Study of Brooklyn and Transportation Alternatives.

That’s the news for 2007. Much much more to come…

Special Thanks (in order of appearance):
Keka Marzagão (website/logo design, photos, VJ, chief co-instigator)
Jeff Duneman (DJ Drummerman, groove provider for Events #1-3)
Sander Hicks and the staff of Vox Pop
Cacao Arcoverde and Ileana Santamaria (musical magic for Event #3)
Susan Siegel and everyone at Flatbush Development Corporation
Clarence Eckerson and all at Streetfilms
Christina Datz-Romero (Lower East Side Ecology Center)
Carolyn Gilles and the Green Edge Collaborative
Lindsey Lusher (Transportation Alternatives)
Eve Martinez (NYC Department of Sanitation)
Mark Levy (host of Sustainable Flatbush Mothership)
Chris Kreussling (Flatbush Gardener)
Eli Kramer (Brooklyn Junction blog)
Gretchen Maneval (Center for the Study of Brooklyn)
Cycleliciousness blog (inspiration for a bike-friendly NYC)
The Flatbush community for supporting our green future
Brooklyn bloggers for setting high standards of journalism, neighborhood pride, and humor
YOU… for reading

Tonight is the second of four community visioning meetings for Imagine Flatbush 2030, to be held at Brooklyn College’s new Conference Center. Everyone is invited.

Local blog Brooklyn Junction provides the perfect summary of why this process is so important:

Come out to the meeting tonight and I think you’ll see why I, and a whole bunch of other people, are so enamored by this: Diverse members of the Flatbush community organizing together to plan for the neighborhood’s future–both to protect the things we celebrate, and to call attention to that which can be improved–before forces outside our control shape the future of the neighborhood for us.

Preserving the neighborhood’s character and diversity while all of Brooklyn is changing so rapidly will be a huge challenge for Flatbush. How can we work for some of the amenities we are lacking — more public green spaces and a community center with activities for all ages were mentioned at the first meeting — without promoting gentrification that would force many longtime and lower-income residents out? How can the inevitable (and, from a sustainability viewpoint, desirable) development of denser housing near transit (and the affordable units it should be required to provide) be combined with zoning that preserves the 100+-year-old Victorian homes that make our neighborhood unique (even for those of us who don’t own one)?

While these questions do not present any simple answers, getting community stakeholders involved in the process is a crucial step. It is no understatement to say that the ongoing Atlantic Yards fiasco has struck fear into all of Brooklyn (and beyond): no one wants to see a big developer given free rein to bring a massive project into their neighborhood with no public involvement, gravely flawed government oversight, and flagrant abuse of eminent domain that takes longtime resident’s homes and small businesses from them. Imagine Flatbush 2030 is an opportunity for the community to create our own vision of the future and begin discussing how to implement it, before (as Brooklyn Junction says) someone else beats us to it. Be there if you can!

Imagine Flatbush 2030 Meeting:
Who: The Flatbush Community
When: Tonight, December 12th, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: At The Brooklyn College Student Center, located on Campus Road between East 27th Street and Amersfort Place, 6th floor (map it).
RSVP: To Sideya Sherman, at the MAS Planning Center, 212-935-3960 or ssherman [at] mas [dot] org.

The next monthly meeting will be Monday December 3rd.

WHAT:
Sustainable Flatbush Monthly Meeting
WHEN:
Monday, December 3rd at 7pm
WHERE:
462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)
WHY:
• Hear report and future plans from Gardening Committee Kickoff Meeting
• Plan for December 8th holiday event at Newkirk Plaza and Post-Holiday Electronics Recycling
• Discuss Imagine Flatbush 2030 visioning meetings
• Discuss plans for Livable Streets event at Brooklyn College early next year

Hope to see you there!