The mayor last week made clear his intention to go forward with a proposal to construct a water playground in Liberty State Park and questioned his opposition’s legitimacy.
“Should an organized minority determine what should happen at Liberty State Park?” Mayor Bret Schundler asked a group of reporters gathered in a City Hall conference room a week ago Friday. “Or should the decision be made by what most New Jerseyans want?”
It’s a question that some say is a distortion of fact. It is also a question that the public will be able to see for themselves later this month at a public hearing. Opponents say the creation of a waterpark would create additional traffic and is anathema to the spirit of the park.
“The mayor’s really avoiding the fact that for the past 25 years the public consensus has been for a free, open-space park,” said Sam Pesin, the head of the Friends of Liberty State Park and an opponent of the 20-acre plan. “It would be out of the question to put a waterpark in Yellowstone Park. Or Central Park. It is sacred land.”
It is another fight in the brief 24-year history of the nearly 1,200-acre (578 of which is water) one-time rail yard and current major migratory bird path. Critics of the new plan argue that densely populated Hudson County has a natural jewel that should not be chipped away. Schundler, on the other hand, sees the plan as a linchpin to “the gateway to New Jersey tourism.”
From talking to people around town, Schundler said he has determined that many want more recreation opportunities.
This past week, he also sent a postcard survey out in the mail to all Jersey City homeowners to poll them on the various proposals for the land. Last year, he sent out a survey on the plans to city schoolchildren to bring to their parents.
The mayor’s idea is part of three proposals that a state committee will be considering. The committee will make a recommendation to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which will then decide the best use and pass it along to the governor for final approval.
Interestingly, the individual making that final decision could be Donald DiFrancesco, the state Senate President who stands to take over as governor should Whitman move on to head the Environmental Protection Agency. DiFrancesco may vie with Schundler for the Republican nomination in the governor’s race.
The committee has been meeting over the last year to figure out what to do with 40 to 45 acres in the perimeter of the park.
Members of the public coming to the meeting at Liberty Science Center at 1:30 p.m., Jan. 27, will hear a range of ideas, from creation of a wildlife preserve to the mayor’s plans for slides and pools.
The first of these proposals would make “protecting the natural resources of the site” – as the draft reads – the top priority and maintaining areas at the boundary as a “passive trail system.” A 25-foot buffer would ring the interior. The New Jersey Audubon Society, which has a seat on the committee, endorses this proposal.
Proposal two, backed by Pesin and other park groups, would have “more than passive trails,” and would allow more space to be used for “informal sports play” and picnicking in areas on and around the existing soil stockpile and ringing the interior.
The third, mayor-backed proposal would also include the trail system and “a more active perimeter” as outlined in the second proposal, but would also include “a high activity feature” for things like “an aquatic center, ice skating rink, horse riding facilities or skateboard facility …”
Schundler’s idea, which has the support of the Liberty State Park Development Corporation, calls for some 20 acres to be used for a “family aquatic center,” a new home for Camp Liberty and a “science farm” for barnyard animals like lambs and horses. Camp Liberty stands to be displaced by a golf course driving range just off the southern edge of the park.
Governor Christine Whitman rejected a plan for a different golf course in the center of the park in 1995.
Traffic woes?
Additional cars in and out of the park would create traffic problems, say Schundler’s opponents.
“There’s a context – a big picture of what’s happening with cars,” said Pesin, who cited a proposed sports complex to be constructed nearby and expansion of Liberty Science Center as having the potential to add more traffic to the area. He was quick to add that he is not against the expansion of the Science Center.
Responded Schundler: “Three thousand cars would hardly be noticeable at all. The other improvements don’t threaten to over-impact Liberty State Park and this one doesn’t either.”
For many, the idea of more space to “take a dip and cool off” as the mayor has said, is a reasonable one. Why shouldn’t there be more opportunities for recreation?
“The problem is it sounds reasonable if you don’t have any of the context,” said Greg Remaud, president of the Liberty State Park Conservancy and a New York/New Jersey Baykeeper. The mayor, he said, is polarizing the issue between “being for children or being for birds.” He questioned the city’s lack of open space and parks on the waterfront during the recent development boom.
“I think the mayor’s gotten a free ride on that one,” said Remaud.
Admission is an issue for waterpark opponents. Estimates of an admission price are anywhere from $8 to $16. “They charge you $8 to $9,” said Schundler, comparing the cost of a trip to the waterpark to a movie at Newport Centre Mall. Yet many low-income families still go to movies, he argued. “The price of a movie is not prohibitive for low-income families of Jersey City.”
He sees funding coming from revenue generated by the park and state capital dollars.
Remaud agrees with Schundler that the park may already have too many open fields, but he disagrees with the mayor’s approach.
“It hurts the park if you’ve done everything in a piecemeal fashion,” he said. “Let’s come up with a comprehensive plan.”
How the groups will come to a conclusion and make a recommendation is anyone’s guess.
“We will stop attacking him [as soon as] he says, ‘I am totally against the commercial waterpark,'” said Pesin.