VOLUME 29, NUMBER 11
JUNE 2 – JUNE 15, 2016
WASTELAND New residential developments to dump 19 tons more garbage on Downtown every day by 2019
A curious call promoting the Water St. arcade infi ll plan that showed Councilmember Margaret Chin’s Caller ID has left the Downtown Alliance and contractor Global Strategy Group struggling to explain themselves.
Game of phones BY COLIN MIXSON The fallout from a botched phone campaign to boost support for a controversial Downtown zoning change has claimed its first casualty. Political Connection, the phone-bank subcontractor, has taken responsibility for calling a member of Community Board 1 with a fake Caller ID purporting to come from Councilmember Margaret Chin’s office to solicit support for a divisive plan to allow retail development of public arcades along Water St. — a measure Chin doesn’t even endorse. The phone-banking firm is taking the fall for Global Strategy Group, a high-powered PR firm that was running the promotion campaign on behalf of the Downtown Alliance, the leading booster of the Water St. proposal, which has faced unexpected pushback from the Council and some local residents. “To be clear, Global Strategy Group and the Alliance for Downtown New York had no knowledge of this issue nor did they instruct us to do so,” read a statement from Political Connection, which was sent through Global Strategy Group’s communications offi ce. “Political Connection takes full responsibility for this terrible mistake.” Downtown Express broke the story last week that Paul Hovitz, a long-serving member of CB1, had received a call that showed Chin’s name in the Caller ID and the number of her district office, and the caller asked him if he wanted to register his support for the Water St. text amendPHONES Continued on page 20
BY BILL EGBERT The residential boom transforming Downtown is still going strong, and has already attracted eagerly anticipated retail and dining options to once-barren neighborhoods. But the thousands of new units coming to the area are also bringing something much less desirable in their wake — several tons more household garbage every day. Based on the upcoming developments already a n nou nc e d, the amount of household trash coming to Downtown is set to surge more in just the next three years than it has over the past five. A n d neighbors say the towers of trash bags piling up on the sidewalks are already seriously affecting their quality of life. “There is so much more garbage now,” said Sarah Elbatanouny, who has lived in Fidi for the past 12 years. “I feel sorry for parents with
strollers. Sometimes the only way for them to get past is to walk in the street.”
residential trash picked up each day across the entire borough of Manhattan rose by 28.6 tons, according to city figures, and nearly half of that increase — 13.6 tons — was all within Community District 1. That dramatic spike in Downtown detritus came from the estimated 4,623 new residential units added to the area since 2010. As the residential boom gathered pace, so did complaints to 311 about the household garbage and recycling piling up on the sidewalk for collection. The city complaint h o t l i n e received 10 calls from CB1 residents in 2011, but that number more than doubled by 2014 to 23 garbage-related complaints, according to the city. More recently, complaints have dropped significantly — from 22 calls in 2015 down to
6,537 new units by 2019 12,682 new residents
38,045 lbs more trash daily 38 TONS more garbage on the sidewalks every collection day
Lower Manhattan has one of the fastest growing residential populations in the city, and definitely has the fastest growing burden of household garbage. Between 2010 and 2015, the amount of
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