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Executive Summary
While
the need to plan for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan has
been the major focus of all New Yorkers and all levels of
government throughout 2002, New York City’s long-term,
and long overdue, development needs must now also become part
of the public deliberation and planning.
This report has been prepared and is being offered as a draft
for public comment and discussion by the New York Building
Foundation and the New York Building Congress, whose members
believe that New York City needs a long-term, twenty- to twenty-five
year economic development strategy to ensure that the City
continues to grow and prosper and maintains its competitive
position in the national and global economies.
The principal goals of this long-term development strategy
are to:
- ensure that an ample capacity of housing, office space,
transportation and cultural facilities will be forthcoming
for future development;
- transform the vast stretches of the City’s underused
waterfront into attractive locations
for commercial, residential, and leisure uses;
- assure that fundamental infrastructure systems –
transportation, electricity and natural gas supplies, telecommunications
and Internet access, water and waste disposal systems --
and educational and public health facilities, are of the
highest possible standards to attract and retain businesses
and
residents in the future.
A comprehensive long-term development strategy must include
the following components:
- Transportation and Infrastructure:
Enlarge the capacity to accommodate recent and future growth.
- Major Project Development:
In addition to the World Trade Center site, initiate planning
and development of mixed use office, hotel, retail, residential
and recreational facilities for the City’s large vacant
districts, e.g. Hudson River Yards, Sunnyside Yards, Atlantic
Terminal, Jamaica Center.
- Housing: Substantially
increase the annual flow of housing units at all income
ranges and in all boroughs.
- Waterfront Redevelopment:
Institute a major program for development of the City’s
next frontier.
- Electricity and Communications:
Assure adequate capacity for growth, security and
market stability.
- Cultural, Educational
and Research Institutions: Develop a long-term program
of increased investment by public, non-profit and private
sectors in facilitiies and programs throughout the City
for arts and culture, for secondary and higher education,
and for medical and scientific research.
- Economic Development:
Reformulate the City’s goals and administrative
delivery of its economic development programs, and embody
in a new amendment to the City’s Charter a mandate
to develop and present a long-term, 10-year economic development
strategy, with annual updates and reports to the City Council
and the public.
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