Regional Plan Association - Community Design


			The problem of abandoned old factories and warehouses on potentially valuable waterfronts is one of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing our region today. One way to deal with such waterfronts was demonstrated in the village of Hastings-on-the-Hudson, which lies a few miles north of Yonkers and New York City. The challenge in Hastings was a 28-acre site on the waterfront that was mostly occupied by old, delapidated industrial buildings. The biggest was an old Anaconda cable factory, now owned by ARCO. One of the most visible brownfield sites in the Hudson Valley, on-going litigation and disagreements on how the Anaconda site should be cleaned up and redeveloped, had stalled progress for decades. Full Report on Hastings-on-Hudson Project [PDF, 32MB]

In 2000, RPA designed a community-driven planning and design process that has helped advance goals for waterfront revitalization and access. RPA convened a Steering Committee and a broad-based advisory committee to provide ongoing guidance. The centerpieces of this effort were two community design workshops that brought together citizen stakeholders, landowners, agency representatives and elected officials. These hands-on design sessions were co-facilitated by planners, urban designers and landscape architects. In the course of the two design workshops, preliminary, intermediate, and, ultimately, final plans were developed and analyzed. The final plan enjoys broad support and has been an invaluable platform for the final negotiations of law suits and agency mandates for the clean up.

• Community-based Planning Principles
The RPA process built on the extensive work of the local Waterfront Revitalization Committee. The following principles were adopted [These are principles which could be applied to other waterfront access in the region as well]: promote mixed-use development, preserve views, provide public access, preserve historic character, insure viable and sustainable development, create a pedestrian-friendly environment, and integrate new development.

• Major Dimensions of the Plan
The plan follows a roughly three-part organization: (1) the northern part of the waterfront, the "Village" will develop as an extension of the existing town center – as a mixed-use pedestrian-oriented place centered around a reconfigured train station. (2) A major new public space will extend to the waterfront to ferries and a marina, linking to a continuous waterfront esplanade. Some of the existing industrial buildings might be reused. Just south of this will be the “Neighborhood” with primarily residential uses. (3) Finally, farther south will be the “Campus," an area with major open spaces and the potential for an institutional presence of some kind.

By creating a compact extension to the Village center, most of the rest of the site is preserved for open space uses – a mixture of active and passive parks, fishing piers, and places for habitat restoration and learning.

• Implementation
The most significant accomplishment has been the use of the plan to help frame an agreement between the village, environmental advocates, state agencies and the landowners. In particular, ARCO agreed to give the property to the community, while paying for a combination of capping and excavation that would make the site usable. In addition, the station is being reconfigured by Metro North to conform to the proposed plan. Finally, in order to completely control the redevelopment, Hastings is investigating how to create their own local development corporation (or LDC), one of RPA's essential recommendations.