"Good evening.  I am Robert Ryan, President of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), and with me is Patrick Stewart, President of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.  And the reason we're both sitting up here today is, we're going to be the referees, and sort of lay out the ground rules of what is going on tonight.  What is taking place here is an informational session where the SSJ Development Team is going to lay out their plans for Southpoint.  They will answer questions, they will listen to what people have to say, they will take suggestions.  This is not a forum, though, for people to stand up and give speeches.  It's a forum to ask questions...  If, in the opinion of myself and Patrick, people are... making speeches, if we're both in agreement on that, we're going to ask you to please sit down."

With those words, RIOC President Robert H. Ryan opened the meeting, two Mondays ago, in which the SSJ Development team outlined its plan for Southpoint.

From the audience of 132 residents, there was not a peep.  Not a word or sound of protest.

Had the same ground rules been laid out by Jerome Blue when he was President of RIOC, how would residents have reacted?  Would they have walked out angrily, as they did March 1 when Blue failed to show up to hear residents' comments at a meeting about conversion of the mini-schools to luxury condominiums?  Or would they have shouted Blue down with a hail of derision for an attempt to quash free expression?

However it would have been handled, it's unlikely the Island's activists would have taken it quietly.

Development is overriding.  Almost everything else about Roosevelt Island is, over time, subject to revision and repair.  But development is permanent, and it can change the character of the Island.

 Surely, Blue would never have been able to recruit Residents Association President Patrick Stewart to join him as co-referee in such a session.

Things have changed on Roosevelt Island.

Jerry Blue is gone.

Ryan is the new man, and he's somewhere on the trailing edge of an ill-defined honeymoon period during which activist residents have been taking his measure and allowing him some latitude – temporarily and warily taking him at his word, for example, when he professes to be working for them.

And Patrick Stewart is not only sitting in on RIOC Board meetings – he's up for State Senate confirmation to become a voting member of the Board.

Things have changed.

The pacification of Roosevelt Island can be traced back to a late-1997 decision by Joseph Lynch, Commissioner of the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, to meet with Patrick Stewart and two other residents, Audrey Berman of the Island House/Westview Task Force and Linda Heimer, an Island activist who later became a member of the RIRA Common Council.  Lynch signaled his sympathy with resident dissatisfaction over Jerry Blue's regime by choosing not to defend Blue, and by professing belief in restoring a dialog with the community that had effectively been choked off by Blue's steadfast refusal to interact with the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.

But it wasn't to be.  Glued in the saddle by his political relationship with Senator Al D'Amato, Blue found ways to make matters far worse throughout 1998.  Blue attempted to increase ground rent at Island House and Westview.  With subway repair about to start and no visible progress toward putting the Tramway into the Metrocard system, RIRA planned a Town Meeting on transit.  Then, when a construction crane damaged a Tram cabin in an accident that could have been far worse, Blue laid off Tram workers and tried to use the mishap as an excuse to take the Tram out of service for an "indefinite period."

As a chaotic 1998 ranged from one Blue-stirred crisis to another, members of the RIOC Board of Directors and residents discovered that Blue had quietly issued a "Waterfront RFP (request for proposals),"

Did residents have a voice?  Was the Capital Planning and Development Committee an effective means of conveying residents' views, or of influencing what Southtown would become?  Did the community meetings, the sessions with leaders, and the CPDC meetings really provide today's residents with some genuine influence over what will happen as Southtown is built, as the building proceeds, and when the building is done?

and found plans were being brought forth for Island development that were seen as an ill fit for this narrow sliver of land in the East River that has no ready access to off-Island parks.

Blue had put the development ball in play, wasn't talking with residents' elected representatives on the RIRA Common Council, and a legally rigid set of procedures had been set in motion.  Whatever efforts Joe Lynch might care to make to stabilize the Roosevelt Island situation, Blue found ways to rub acid into the wounds in the relationship between the State of New York and the residents of Roosevelt Island.

Residents protested a plan to put an eldercare building on parkland at the Octagon, and the RIOC Board, which had been surprised by the proposal to begin with, set it aside.

Weary of losing their voice in a democracy, a group of residents called The Maple Tree Group crafted legislation that Assemblymember Pete Grannis introduced in Albany.  Once law, it would empower residents to elect their neighbors to the RIOC Board, then hire and fire the President of RIOC, who otherwise would continue to be Governor George Pataki's instrument of colonial-style control over an Island he's never visited.

The proposal for Southpoint Hotel Towers (separate story) materialized in response to Blue's Waterfront RFP and sent lovers of parkland skyward:  It was proposing development directly contrary to their understanding of the Island's General Development Plan – part of a legal contract between City and State under which the State manages the Island and its future - not the City.

As 1998 lurched from one Blue-created crisis to another, Ron Vass, a resident member of the RIOC Board of Directors, resigned the post with an angry blast at Blue.  Blue's days appeared to be numbered, but it wasn't to be; he was to serve nearly another full year.

As the year ended, residents, frustrated with a lack of response from the State administration, handed it a slap:  A 92% vote supporting the idea of giving residents, not State appointees, control over the Island's affairs.

Days after the vote, at a RIOC Board meeting, Lynch made two announcements residents considered significant:  Two residents nominated for the Board by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but never proposed to the State Senate, would now sit in on RIOC Board meetings – Residents Association President Stewart, and Susan Whitaker, the Chair of the nearly-defunct Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations.  Furthermore, residents would gain something of a voice in development.  Lynch created two committees of the RIOC Board on which residents would have a formal voice:  one on Capital Planning and Development, and one on Strategic Planning.  These committees, which would include residents, put a new layer of review into the development process:  These advisory committees would review development proposals and make recommendations to the RIOC Board.

If Lynch and State government truly wanted to pacify Roosevelt Island, this was seen as a significant step.  Presumably, no longer would the President of RIOC take developer proposals to the RIOC Board as jack-in-the-box surprises, and no longer would the RIOC Board be voting with a bare minimum of information.  Instead, they would have the thoughtful recommendations of a study group that would include resident views.

Seven months later, in June of 1999, Jerry Blue was suddenly gone, having left behind a relieved Island, but also a portfolio of proposed development that had to be seen through to decisions.

Development:   It is overriding.  Almost everything else about Roosevelt Island is, over time, subject to revision and repair.  If the President of RIOC is a dud, he will one day be gone.  If Public Safety fails to perform, residents can bring pressure for improvement.  If the streets aren't clean, one day they can be.  If the red buses occasionally run chaotically, it's a temporary inconvenience.  But development...

Development is permanent.  Development can change the character of the Island: &nsbp;Where once there was a soccer field and

"...it was the sense of the committee to approve the developer, not the plan, not the architecture, none of that...  what we agreed to was to approve the developer and nothing else." -Patrick Stewart

baseball diamond, there is construction, then buildings, then residents, then traffic.  The housing economics of the new residences determine much about the nature of new neighbors.  They, in turn, change the nature of the neighborhood.

And on a small Island, the neighborhood is everything.  There is no relief in looking west if neighbors to the east aren't one's cup of tea.  College students don't suddenly turn into parents raising toddlers.  Owners of luxury condos don't give up their limousines and deliveries when they move in.  Neighborhood – the structures and the neighbors – are everything.

Development is overriding.

A year after Lynch's announcement of the Capital Planning and Development Committee (CPDC) and the Strategic Planning Committee, how have they served?

The Strategic Planning Committee, under RIOC Board member Frank McKenna, has barely met.  McKenna himself has not been at recent RIOC Board meetings.  At least one resident named to the committee considers it nothing more than an ill-disguised sham.

The Capital Planning and Development Committee has met, but not since its mid-September meeting late in August, when its Chair, Frank Angelino, asked its members to recommend full designation of The Hudson Companies and The Related Companies as the developers of Southtown.  They did, and within a month, the RIOC Board conferred that status on Hudson and Related as the partnered developer.  With those votes, CPDC and the RIOC Board effectively ceded all-important long-term control of the site to Hudson and Related.

So a question arises:  Did residents have a voice?  Was the Capital Planning and Development Committee an effective means of conveying residents' views, or of influencing what Southtown would become?  Did the community meetings, the sessions with leaders, and the CPDC meetings really provide today's residents with some genuine influence over what will happen as Southtown is built, as the building proceeds, and when the building is done?

Or has CPDC been simply a component of the pacification of an Island which, under Jerry Blue's management, probably would have fought every suspected move to build?

It's fair to note that the CPDC voted against conversion of the Island's west-shore mini-schools into luxury condominiums.  Suspicious of promises that the promenade would never be opened to traffic, and seeing the $250,000-a-year ground rent as a pittance, CPDC said a firm "no."  But the RIOC Board has yet to act on that recommendation, so the jury is still out on CPDC's effect in the matter.

But CPDC did recommend approval of the Southtown developers, and the RIOC Board did approve them.  That, some would say, shows that the resident-input process CPDC represents is effective.

But was it?  Did the system work?

Actually, there is a seemingly subtle, yet all-important, difference between what CPDC recommended, and what the RIOC Board approved.  CPDC voted "yes" to give final designation as developers to Hudson and Related.  The RIOC Board voted yes on Hudson/Related and their plan for Southtown.

The developers have said they see their plan as approved.  RIOC President Ryan has said community input was adequate, and that the developers' plan was properly approved by the RIOC Board.

To see the difference between the CPDC recommendation and the RIOC Board's vote, you have to hear the conversation around the table as Frank Angelino gentled CPDC toward its "sense of the committee" on the developers, then compare it with the words of the RIOC Board's resolution.

As for the latter, it contained language giving final designation to the developer, but also this language:  Resolved, that the Revised Roosevelt Island Southtown Plan and Project are hereby approved.   (Emphasis added.)

But to the extent that the resolution gave an OK to anything more than the developers, it may have stepped well beyond the bounds of the recommendation of the CPDC.

And to the extent it did that, the resident voice in the development of Roosevelt Island may have been diminished substantially.

Here, condensed for space reasons, is the conversation that preceded the August "sense of the committee" CPDC vote (full transcript).

Frank Angelino (Chair):    We have one item that we wanted to take up to get a sense of the committee, on Southtown... I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to go around the table and just state views...  We would be designating the final designation of the developer to build on that area... in accordance with a plan that we've seen for housing plus certain amenities, as it's been developing...  We want to take it to the final designation in order for them to continue to go through the processes they've been going through... hearings, working out details on the whole proposal.

Laurence Parnes:    What does that designation do? ... What we saw the last time didn't sound like it was the final site plan...  What future actions does the [RIOC] Board have to take?  And if the Board does have to take future actions, will the Board look for input from this committee?

Robert Ryan:    I'm sure the Board would want input, but most of the stuff from that point on will be having to do with engineering, construction schedules, stuff like that.

Angelino:    There are issues, Larry, that become of concern that we could bring it back before [this] committee.  [The developers] certainly showed a willingness to come to just about every meeting on the Island, so I think that they would be very happy to come back before the committee.

Mary Camper-Titsingh:    But building height and everything, that's already been determined, for all the buildings?

Ryan:    No, I don't think they've even designed...

Camper:    But, I mean, will we have any control over that?

Vincent Kopicki (RIOC Engineer):    I can't recall off-hand, but on the schematic there is a layout of tiered buildings.

Camper:    And they're going to stick to that?

Marc Diamond:    It wasn't presented to us as final...  One of the things we ran into with the mini-schools is clearly an issue over what was approved originally and that type of thing.  So I just wanted to be clear what this [final designation] means.  Then we can decide how we proceed on that.  The developer made a presentation at a town meeting, I think, where he laid out a scheme, made some comments about the heights of the buildings, talked about the... I think he was going to have a central, town center type of thing, and I think that was generally met favorably.  The question is to what extent is he bound at all by that concept, and if not, what, does he have to go through to change it, or can he go now and build...

Ryan:    I'm not sure on the height of the buildings.   The footprints of the buildings and everything, none of that is going to change.

Parnes:    I understand, but do they have to come back to the Board after this for further approvals, and if so, what are they?  Or are they now free to develop as they see fit...?

Ryan:    No, they're going to have to come...  I mean, Vinnie, don't they have to come back with all the plans?

Vincent Kopicki (RIOC Engineer):    They have to come back with partial plans for approval.

Parnes:    And does that require Board approval, as well?

At that point – seemingly with several questions remaining unresolved as to just how much final authority such a vote would cede to the developers – Chair Frank Angelino cut off debate and asked for the committee's sentiment.  His question, which ran over 400 words, is presented here unedited:

Angelino:    If I may, at this point, because I know that the questions are all vital and also very appropriate, I think that what I was thinking that we could do tonight, knowing what we know so far about Southtown, knowing who the developers are, knowing that they have gone through a certain community process in a number of meetings with the community, including our big meeting in March where there was that whole opportunity for everybody on the Island, knowing that they have a certain window of timing right now because of possible changes in market conditions and financing and other things, and knowing they need to make certain commitments if they want to have users along the lines of the medical facility that he was talking about, or medical personnel, and knowing also that it's going to be a phased development, we do know... I wanted to get a sense from this committee whether, up to this point, ...it would be helpful if we just went around the committee and got a sense of the committee whether, on what they've seen so far, whether... and reserving any opportunity to make any comment on specific aspects of the project, whether or not the committee is comfortable at this point with having the Board taking it up to do the designation of these two people as the developers for the project?

Ryan:    You have my word, also, that the committee will be part of the process as this moves forward.  I mean, it would be stupid for you not to be part of the process.

Angelino then went around the table, taking the "sense of the committee" he'd asked to hear.  The uncertainty of some members, and the assumption that the RIOC Board would have to vote on specifics and that there would be a future opportunity to advise the RIOC Board, was apparent in the discussion:

Patrick Stewart:    Overall, I'm very much for it as presented to us.  What I have seen of the drawings and all of that is good.  I'd like to have something in writing about the plans that have been presented to date and those that seem to have the general approval of the Island...

Diamond:    I think there's probably a distinction between what... We're looking for final approval at this point, but it's final approval of the developer as opposed to final approval of his project.

Ryan:    Correct.

Diamond:    The conceptual design should be approved by RIOC as they go along: conception, design development, schematic design, whatever...  From what I have seen, I'm in favor of final approval for this developer and his conceptual design.

Hochman:    Well, I agree, but I still take... I agree with accepting the developers, but I really am still so unclear about the project.  I will accept the scheme in the way they had it.  I cannot go into any details at all since I really have not seen...

Camper:    Yes, that's the way I feel, too, frankly.   The developer in fine.  I wholeheartedly approve and you know, I would like to see them get started as soon as possible.  But I think there are still many, many questions about what he's going to put there.

Ryan:    Well, this is, you see, the engineering alone is going to take eight or nine months.  It's not something that's going to happen overnight.

Camper:    But we want...

Ryan:    No, I hear you.  The committee will be part of the process.  You will be briefed.

Angelino:    I share the same views as the ones expressed.  Again, it's a process where there'll be a lengthy document which will embody all of the terms that are being discussed now and all of the obligations of the developers and all of the benefits to the Island, and there'll be a number of steps as Marc mentioned where there'll be opportunity for... and certainly... I'm sure the Board will be interested, I'm sure this committee would be interested in seeing how the design progresses so that... and especially also not only the buildings themselves but also the surrounding grounds, and I think everybody would be very interested in that, so it's a process, but I think it's helpful to have a sense of the committee that generally, with the reservations expressed, that people are generally in favor of those developers and how they've conducted themselves and presented the project to date and the benefits that the project will bring to the Island.

It's clear, in reviewing Website NYC10044's full transcript of the meeting, that much was unclear.  Were members of the committee approving the positions of the buildings?  Their size?  The location of Main Street in the new area?  The placement of a soccer field at the Southeast corner of the site near the Queensboro Bridge?  The order in which the buildings would be constructed?

In community meetings after the RIOC Board's resolution gave Hudson/Related "final designation" and approved the final Plan and Project, as its resolution put it, CPDC members shed some light on what they thought they were recommending.

Jeff Hochman, for example, spoke briefly at a meeting of the RIRA Common Council, of which he is a member, when RIOC President Ryan visited for a give-and-take session.  Hochman said, speaking of the final designation voted at the August CPDC meeting, "We didn't have it on the agenda...  There was a sense, not a vote.  People have come to me and said we voted on the specific plan.  I don't agree."

Ryan responded, "I don't agree with that," then reminded Hochman, "It is an advisory committee... Your job is to give advice.  You are telling what the community feels, OK?  You are advising the Board.  The Board then has to take an action, OK?"  Searching his memory for details of the CPDC meeting, Ryan continued:  "What I think was given, what took place that night... advice was given to the board that, in the big picture, the community liked the development and liked the concept of the development... that as the process works forward...  They haven't... you see... everybody thinks... I mean, this is what kills me about 'trucks are rolling down the street next month.' They haven't even done their engineering and architecture work yet."

Hochman tried for clarification, and got some help from RIRA President Patrick Stewart:

Hochman:    I'm saying there was a misinterpretation.

Stewart:    My understanding of all of that was that it was the sense of the committee to approve the developer, not the plan, not the architecture, none of that, because there wasn't anything to approve...  They haven't done any of that stuff yet, so what we agreed to was to approve the developer and nothing else.

When the developers appeared before a subsequent session of the RIRA Common Council's Planning Committee, David Wine of Related and David Kramer of Hudson told The WIRE that they felt their massing plan – the layout of the buildings, the soccer field, Main Street – had received the approval of the RIOC Board.

But not all CPDC members intended that.  Mary Camper-Titsingh, for example, told The WIRE:   "We said clearly that we were in favor of the developers, but we specifically required the right to comment on any of the specific plans that they proposed for that area, because we had never really been given a final picture of what they were planning to do... the height of the buildings, and all those things, were hypothetical.  Larry Parnes and Jeff Hochman specifically wanted to be able to comment on the proposal that they finally came up with."

The WIRE queried all the members of the committee, as well as the developers, and Ryan of RIOC, in an attempt to determine just what they thought had been approved by CPDC, and whether the RIOC Board's approval of the "plan and project" was in conflict with CPDC's advice.

Developers Wine and Kramer responded by indicating they felt there had been significant opportunity for community input, and said they look forward to continued community input.  Their letter, which is published in full in this issue of The WIRE, did not back off from their earlier statements that their massing plan, the location of Main Street, and the placement of the new soccer field have the final approval of the RIOC Board of Directors.

But two resident CPDC members, Camper-Titsingh and Byron Gaspard, were unequivocal:  Do you feel the community has had adequate opportunity for input [on Southtown], either through CPDC or by other means, regarding (a) the order of construction of buildings, (b) the massing plan (size and positioning of buildings), (c) the location of the soccer field, and (d) the location of Main Street?  Camper and Gaspard answered "No" on all points.

The WIRE also asked the committee members:  Do you feel CPDC has endorsed any of the listed items.  Again, Camper-Titsingh and Gaspard answered unequivocally, "No."

Patrick Stewart, on the other hand, seemed to disagree with the statements he'd made when Ryan visited the RIRA Common Council meeting:  He answered "yes" to every item, then added a note saying, "Committee approved concept and principle...  Construction matters, infrastructure, positioning of buildings, layout of building interiors... etc., have yet to be determined."

Hochman responded to The WIRE's survey by saying "there [have] been many meetings with the developers in which our opinions have been listened to," suggesting he is satisfied with the level of community input.  "I will agree or disagree when each individual aspect of the plan is fleshed out," he wrote.  "I think the order of construction makes sense financially...  I approved the location of Main Street.  We have asked them to change certain aspects of the building size and bulk, including location.  Although the developers did not change 100%, they did make some movement."

CPDC member Larry Parnes commented, "I distinctly remember the developers stating how they had modified the site plan in response to residents' comments...  my feeling was that I was getting into the thing a little late."  Parnes added, "The recent approval by the committee basically supported the schematic site plan.  The committee was assured by Rob Ryan that issues related to construction impacts, the nature of the housing and design details were not finalized and that the committee would have input on those issues."

Parnes went on, in his response, "...it has surprised me that some issues have recently been raised about Southtown that did not appear to be issues in the past.  One involves the supposed blocking of the view to the Queensboro Bridge from Main Street... the view that one sees as one passes Rivercross lawn and heads toward the subway will not be affected..."  Parnes also commented that the present soccer field, which is part of the construction site, slopes to the west, and the playing field is not in good condition, and said he feels the community should focus its effort, "rather than [on] prohibiting development on the existing field as some have suggested," on "requiring the developers to complete the new soccer field near the bridge before construction begins at the current one."

Parnes commented further:  "There's been some concern that Rob Ryan is using the CPDC's approval of the Southtown schematic site plan as the OK from residents to proceed on Southtown without further input from either the committee or residents.  If the committee is so influential, let's see what happens with the mini-school condominium proposal, which was all but unanimously opposed by the committee."

Marc Diamond, an architect who serves on CPDC, told The WIRE, "There was an urgency to RIOC's requesting our input.  It was to accommodate a time-sensitive opportunity for the developer.  CPDC was clearly advised that nothing in detail was being asked to be reviewed.  That is, we were not asked to review, nor advise approval of the specific location of Main Street, the nature of the bends in Main Street, the specific locations, orientations, heights, setbacks, economic mix, financial structure of the buildings, nor any other detailed aspect of the project.  If any of these specific items are no longer subject to change, CPDC was bypassed."

Another resident member of CPDC, Lisa Knox, did not respond to a request for her views on the level of community input.  However, she has generally supported RIOC on development matters, both in the days of Jerome Blue and now.

RIOC's Ryan responded to the questions about community input by pointing out that there have been "eight RIOC meetings" to discuss the plan, that "the developers have met individually with community leaders, and twelve articles and three editorials have appeared in The Main Street WIRE..."  Ryan stopped short of claiming that the CPDC had approved the location of the soccer field or of Main Street, the massing plan, or the order of construction.

But it may be evidence of the pacification of Roosevelt Island that when Ryan has appeared before meetings, he has said the order of construction of the new buildings is dictated by the availability of infrastructure (electrical lines, water, sewer, AVAC) at the north end of the site, and most activists have simply accepted his assertion that the order of construction is governed by economics.

One or two residents have suggested that construction start at the Tramway.  But Ryan has responded that the economics don't permit it, and that response has usually been accepted, in meetings, without further complaint or comment.  No member of the community has asked why the sole determinant must be economics, rather than, for example, what might be best for the Island if only two or three Southtown buildings are completed before a downturn in the real estate market.

Certainly, the removal of Jerome Blue and the creation of the Capital Planning and Development Committee with several resident members has been a successful effort toward pacification of Roosevelt Island – successful enough, along with a good real estate market, to get development moving here.

It remains to be seen if the RIOC Board may yet assert itself with the developers of Southtown, demanding that they submit details of the massing plan for Board consideration.  But the Board itself effectively gave its approval to the order of construction, for example, when its resolution budgeted available funds for extension of the infrastructure.  There is a question, then, as to how much a RIOC Board consisting mostly of non-residents, some of whom have had a spotty attendance record at best, will push for more information and control in their once-a-month visits to the Island.

Oddly, at no point through the process did anyone officially involved in the process pursue the concern about the order of construction, possibly tending to think of Southtown as a whole, rather than the possibility that construction of its parts may be spread over many, many years.

In all this, there is a suggestion that, for the community, pacification has been something of an end in itself – that once satisfied by the removal of Blue and the creation of the CPDC input mechanism, the community lost interest in demanding any serious contemplation of the gross specifics of Southtown.  Perhaps distracted by the mini-schools proposal and by fear of luxury hotel towers at Southpoint, Island activists seem to have relaxed, almost sitting back to watch the process like a parade going by in which they have no significant role.

And, as Jeff Hochman observed in the RIRA meeting dialog with Rob Ryan, "We do not have a formal procedure on this Island for the community to be involved.  There is nothing like we have in the rest of the City – a ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Process).  We don't have that.  And so, you may say we had these hearings... but the public hearings under the previous administration never had one item, or one request, or one statement recorded, so we could know what's going on."

Hearing Hochman, Ryan responded, "With the former administration, did you have a Town Hall Meeting where you could ask questions...?"  He was defending his approach to managing Roosevelt Island by comparing it with Jerome Blue's.  But he didn't contradict Hochman's essential lament – that there is no formal process for community input and, as yet – without a locally-elected RIOC Board and without power beyond advice on CPDC – residents have no genuine power to influence development on the Island.

But development, on an Island this small, is everything.  Other things – dissatisfaction with Public Safety or worries about restoration of Blackwell House – can be left to time and good effort to repair.  Development – the digging of foundations and the pouring of concrete – is irreversible.

And on Roosevelt Island, development is everything.