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Q&A
Council Member Bottcher questions Alan van Capelle about the Western Rail Yards plan
2:21:59
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141 sec
Council Member Erik D. Bottcher engages in a Q&A session with Alan van Capelle from Friends of the High Line regarding the Western Rail Yards development plan. They discuss the 2009 plan, community collaboration, and the current proposal's impact on the High Line.
- Van Capelle emphasizes the collaborative nature of the 2009 plan and expresses concerns about the current proposal.
- Bottcher inquires about the High Line's willingness to collaborate on a new plan.
- Van Capelle suggests withdrawing the current application and starting over with more community input.
Erik D. Bottcher
2:21:59
A question, for Alan McCapell.
2:22:03
Hi, Alan.
2:22:04
Are you totally wedded to the 02/2009 plan?
2:22:38
Are you opposed to the idea of, you know, was characterized earlier that you weren't willing to be really collaborative.
2:22:47
Are you opposed to the idea of sitting down and coming up with something that works for the High Line?
Alan van Capelle
2:22:12
Thank you, council member.
2:22:14
Look, I think what's important about the 02/2009 plan is that it was worked on together.
2:22:19
It was a negotiated process that took, as I understand, many, many months to get to fruition.
2:22:28
Not everybody was happy with everything in that plan, and this seems to be a real departure from what was worked on in 02/2009.
2:22:53
Look, think what we met multiple times.
2:22:57
The applicant seems to have counted the amount of times.
2:23:00
I didn't take the time to count, but fair enough to say we had many conversations.
2:23:05
I just don't think they've proven themselves to be good listeners.
2:23:08
I do wanna say, council member, they're our neighbors.
2:23:11
They're gonna continue to be our neighbors.
2:23:13
Our staffs work on with each other on a host of operational and security issues every single day.
2:23:19
This is a rupture.
2:23:21
At some point, there'll be a repair.
2:23:23
We very much wanna see that site developed.
2:23:26
We encourage the applicant to withdraw their application, to sit down with the community board and start back at the drawing board.
2:23:33
They have a timeline and a deadline at the June.
2:23:36
I don't believe there's going to be an opportunity for the community to negotiate something before between now and when their application for a casino has to get in.
2:23:47
And I think if they had started with the community instead of giving us a full formed project at the beginning, we wouldn't be here today.
2:23:55
They did make minor adjustments, but when they notched back a building, they pushed the other corner of the building further closer to the High Line.
2:24:03
So I really don't think those were tweaks.
2:24:06
And as our professional architects who've reviewed the plans have said, this plan is so bad, it's not tweakable.
2:24:13
It it literally has to be withdrawn and start over from scratch.
2:24:18
Thank you.
2:24:19
Thank you, council member.