Brooklyn, NY – The Bloomberg administration appears to be fast-tracking federal stimulus money for the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
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According to Bloomberg documents, the Navy Yard could be in line to receive $20 million in federal funds to replace water and infrastructure lines to conserve water and eliminate leaks, which undermine surface infrastructure.
The money would be additional to the $200 million in capital funding that Bloomberg allocated for Navy Yard in late 2006.
The document, authored by William Daly, Bloomberg’s director of Federal Legislative Affairs, suggested the money could come as part of a $1 billion grant to the city through the federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF).
The fund currently provides a lending mechanism to help states and local governments deal with infrastructure needs relating to water and sewage.
“Using the CWSRF to issue grants, rather than loans, would provide the city with new resources to maintain its water infrastructure, in addition to its currently committed capital program,” wrote Daly.
Daly wrote that providing the money in the form of a grant instead of a loan would allow the city to reduce future water rate increases and allow for more water and sewer infrastructure improvements citywide.
Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) President Andrew Kimball refused comment on any federal stimulus money coming to the industrial park.
Established in 1801, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, located on the East River waterfront between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges, once employed thousands of people in the military shipbuilding industry.
Closed by the federal government in 1966, the city has since assumed ownership and re-opened the Yard as an industrial park. According to the BNYDC officials, the industrial park currently operates at 99 percent capacity and houses more than 240 private-sector firms employing about 5,000 permanent jobs, half of which are held by Brooklyn residents.
Additionally, the industrial park is home to between 500 and 1,000 temporary, production-related positions associated with Steiner Studios, a full-service production facility situated at the Navy Yard.
Separately, Kimball came to the recent Community Board 2 Land Use Committee to announce that construction is set to begin this summer on the $15 million Brooklyn Navy Yard Historical Center. The money includes $15 million in City Council funds and the rest to be raised privately.
The historical center will be housed in the former United States Marine Corps Commandant’s residence. Built in 1857, it is now known as Building 92.
Upon completion, the 25,000-square-foot facility will celebrate the Navy Yard’s past, present and future and will provide community meeting space and office facilities for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment (BCUE).
Am I reading right? “The Navy Yard could be in line to receive $20 million in federal funds to replace water and infrastructure lines to conserve water and eliminate leaks, which undermine surface infrastructure”. In other words the mayor thinks it very very important to build up Steiner studios (a mokom zimah) and prepare the infrastructure for thousands of hipsters (to spread more zohameh). Sometimes I would like to sing “mein shtetele Viliamsburgh”, but what has become of it? In place where once it was full of Kedusha and Taharah, now it is full of Tumeh Vezohama. We don’t want no infra and no structure – please leave us alone.
waste of money
I mamesh don’t chap. NYers are taxed right and left with Manhattan paying huge amount of taxes with all it’s residents. Where the heck does all the money go!
I know that there is sanitation road repair etc. But there has to be something wrong with the accounting and tax allocation. NY needs 20 million for da brooklyn navy yard. Ye gotta be kidin! Thats federal tax money! My money! You are dreaming if you think that it will create so many jobs. Whatever.
If you dont like it – move. Remember you are in golus.
Reply to #4
Looks like you forgot that Mayor Bloomberg gave most City Hall workers hefty raisses claiming “they’re all working hard & doing a great job”.
Which might be right but being we the tax payers are the ones paying for it I would appriciate if he waits till we get our raisess. ( I believe we all work hard for our money…)
The stimulus bill is going to hurt senior citizens, not only in the pocketbook but potentially with their lives by limiting the medicines and medical procedures approved for them. This has the potential of “murdering” many older sick people. Write to your congressman protesting this provision in the bill. Please!!!
Conserving water doesn’t save money long term. We are supposedly only paying for the delivery system of the water, because B”H, we get that from above for free. When NYers conserve water bec. of the ridiculous rates, the NYC water board raises its rates to cover their losses… Who loves NY?