Ralliers Call for Halt to City's Deal with Seaport Developer

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer tells ralliers that she sees a chance for a new Seaport agreement with the next city administration. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

With the Howard Hughes Corp. expected this month to reveal its development proposal for portions of the South Street Seaport, nearly 100 people rallied near Water and Fulton streets on Saturday to oppose the city's "handover" of the properties to the developer.

Save Our Seaport, the rally organizers, say they fear that the Texas-based developer will further commercialize the area and destroy its historic character. Plans for the city-owned properties must go through a six-month approval process, which includes public input and is not expected to begin until January, at the earliest.

"The Fulton Fish Market buildings are public structures, holding four centuries of collective memory," Robert LaValva, founder and director of the New Amsterdam Market, told the ralliers. "We demand its buildings remain in public hands and dedicated to a public good." 

The Hughes Corporation has an option with the city to redevelop the sites of the former fish market’s New Market and Tin Buildings, which LaValva says should be returned to use as fresh-food markets. Save Our Seaport and a coalition of its supporters believe that the agreement not only threatens the two former market buildings, but that it also jeopardizes the South Street Seaport Museum and its six historic vessels.

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, presumed to be the next Manhattan Borough President, said she sees hope in changing that agreement. "Who knows what’s going to happen in January 2014," she told the crowd. "It's a new day, new mayor, new controller, new borough president, new City Council, with different ways of looking at things."

Brewer was the only City Council member who earlier this year voted against Hughes's plan to redevelop the shopping mall on Pier 17.

"People need to know that this is still a historic area and a place where residents need services," said Paul Hovitz, a long-time Community Board 1 member and resident of nearby Southbridge Towers. "It is not simply a stop-by for all the buses that drop people off to visit.”

In an appearance before CB1's Seaport Committee last month, Howard Hughes executive Chris Curry declined to provide even a hint of the company's proposal, which he said was still under discussion with the city's Economic Development Corp., the agency that owns the Seaport and manages its leases.

“There’s really no project to talk about at this point,” Curry insisted. The plans, which are still “evolving,” he said, will likely be announced by the end of October.

“There needs to be an understanding of what that proposed project could potentially be that would go through the public process,” Curry added. “Nothing’s going to happen without everyone looking at it and commenting on it.”

Community Board 1, the Borough President and the City Planning Commission all have a say in the plan before it is finally presented to the City Council for approval. During the six-month period, members of the public will also get to comment on the plan at a city-organized hearing.

In response to a call by Save Our Seaport for a "moratorium" on this Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), Michael Levine, CB1's land use consultant, said at the September meeting that such a demand is unrealistic.

“We’ll never get a moratorium—no city administration is going to say ‘no’ to land use actions in this part of the city,” he said.

Instead, the committee plans to introduce a resolution at its Oct. 15 meeting that asks the city to allow the board to participate in crafting the plan before it is officially submitted for review. "The only motion we won’t entertain would be asking for a moratorium,” committee chair John Fratta told the Trib in a phone interview. “It makes no sense."

But for members of Save Our Seaport and the group’s allies, nothing short of a moratorium and a new agreement with the city will suffice.

"I've been watching New York City renegotiate contracts my entire life," Simeon Bankoff, president of the Historic Districts Council, said at the rally. "What is causing [the city] to not say, ‘Whoa, let's renegotiate this contract? Let’s look at what's actually good for the city and not good for one business.’"