Our second forum in our Dig Deep for a Greener New York policy forum series, focused on Funding an Equitable Park System. Our panelists from a variety of organizations discussed the importance of making sure everyone has access to green spaces.

In order to provide a fully-funded city park system the city will have to dramatically expand annual operating costs. Where will the money come from? Our panel provided great ideas on different funding streams to make sure parks across the entire city are safe and up to date.

• Check out pictures from the packed room on our Facebook page.
• Read our background paper, Alternative Funding for an Equitable Park System.

After the forum, NYLCVEF worked closely with New Yorkers for Parks and analyzed the recently laid out New York City budget to present recommendations. Our report, Funding an Equitable Park System: Recommendations for New York City lays out concrete steps the City can take to help bring in new revenue for our park system.

Our key recommendations include:

• The City should expand concessions in parks and divert 20% of revenues to a citywide parks equity fund rather than the general fund.
• The City should create specific districts to fund new park developments and/or improve existing parks, including the creation of Business Improvement Districts and Park Improvement Districts.
• The City should use tax increment finance, zoning incentives and development bonuses to leverage private dollars to fund the capital and maintenance needs of local parks.
• NYC Parks should identify a specific method to fund the maintenance and operations of new parks and facilities at the time that the project capital budgets are developed.
• Create a citywide park district, an entity that can levy property taxes to supplement the general fund budget with additional maintenance and operations funding.

“New York City has the premier parks system in the country but we’re lagging behind when it comes to how we fund our prized open spaces,” said Marcia Bystryn, President of NYLCVEF. “We look forward to working with the City to implement alternative funding strategies to help achieve a robustly-funded, well-maintained parks system that more equitably allocates resources."

Click here to view our Recommendations for New York City

Did you know that New York City ships 10,500 tons of residential waste to out-of-state landfills every day?

That adds up to nearly 27 million miles a year -- all on large, long-haul trucks that spew massive amounts of climate-warming emissions into our air.

New York City is lagging behind other major cities in the adoption of new technologies, even as our current system grows more and more expensive. Isn't it time for the Big Apple to rethink its solid waste management strategy -- and soon?

"Wasted Opportunity? Confronting NYC's Solid Waste Challenges" was a provocative half-day discussion that included a full accounting of New York City's existing solid waste challenges and charted out a course for a more sustainable future.

This policy forum took place December 6, 2012 at the New York City Bar Association.

"Wasted Opportunity?" explored the critical and timely issue of how New York City can best manage the nonrecyclable fraction of its municipal solid waste. Our speakers discussed the economic, environmental and public health impacts of the city's current system of managing unrecyclable waste, with a new system utilizing a range of new conversion technologies that extract and create energy and other resources from waste.

Our speakers were:

PANEL 1:
Caswell Holloway; NYC Deputy Mayor for Operations
Eric Goldstein; Director, New York City Environment, Natural Resources Defense Council
Carol Kellermann; President, Citizens Budget Commission
Thomas Matte, MD; Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Environmental Surveillance and Policy, NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene.
Maria Gotsch; President & CEO, New York City Investment Fund
Moderated by NYLCVEF President Marcia Bystryn

PANEL 2:
Kate Ascher; Principal, Happold Consulting
James J. Binder, P.E.; Principal, Alternative Resources, Inc.
Helena Durst; Vice President, The Durst Organization
Brendan Sexton; President, The Sexton Company
Jamie Stein; Coordinator, Environmental Systems Management Program, Pratt Institute
Moderated by Adam Lisberg, Editor, City & State

This forum was generously sponsored by:

Additional sponsors included the Energy & Environmental Law Committees of the New York City Bar Association and Columbia Law School's Center for Climate Change Law.

Our media sponsor for this special program was City Hall News, part of the Manhattan Media publishing group.

Click here to read our background paper on this issue

Click here to Read our Recommendations for New York City