Urban Planning Proposal
New York, New York
Fall 2025
Extraction is also a word that characterizes the western side of Staten Island, bordering the body of water known as the Arthur Kill. The majority of the land on the water's edge is zoned as industrial, and it abuts the highway that separates the inland communities from the coast. From the middle of the island, you'd almost forget you were surrounded by water.
There is also difficulty in getting down to the water. Much of the land here is private; there are no parks, and there are nearly no sidewalks in industrial sections. The new Amazon warehouse complex located in Bloomfield does not have sidewalks, and there is nearly no way to get around as a pedestrian. Private car and city bus are the two ways in and around.
Absentee landlords are another issue. Significant portions of the land here are registered to addresses in states across the nation, with plots on both the New Jersey side and the New York side functioning as New York headquarters for companies across the country. The presence of these industries has had a profound effect on the area's wetlands, which are severely threatened. Many of these wetlands became the site for industry because the water could be drained elsewhere, channelized, and the land flattened for building. Wetlands, like upland meadows, are desirable for development because they are easy to clear. These wetlands, however, are in danger, and most distressingly they are home to a species of endangered frog, the Atlantic Coast leopard frog.
These kinds of technical landscapes are very extractive, yet these kinds of industrial landscapes are necessary for modern living. Among the industries you can find here are, of course, Amazon; Designer Stone, which sells countertops; Richmond Recycling; a plumbing company; City Asphalt, which produces Asphalt; Big Apple Ready Mix, who sell concrete; Pratt Industries Paper Mills; Con Edison of New York; and DSNY's composting facility. We cannot necessarily expect these industries to vacate the island, nor can we expect them to stop working.
This project explores a potential solution that allows industry to stay but increases access to the vacant land in Bloomfield and protects the threatened wetlands in the area. This proposal creates a community land trust for wetland stewardship and access along the kill, including between Fresh Kills and Mariner’s Marsh Park.
By examining usufruct, easements, and right-of-way, this project takes a railway line that connects the land in this section of the island and proposes pairing this existing right-of-way with a set of pathways that connect various different sites on this part of Staten Island, including the site of a historic explosion as well as access to Fresh Kills. At several points, the pathway deviates from the railway to allow walkers to travel through the various wetlands that lie along the trail.
Initial exploration included classifying sites as one of six categories that overlap and combine to create property conditions (see above axonometrics). Each of these site classifications was tied to a real site bordering the Arthur Kill.
This proposal focuses on five distinct wetland sites that already exist in this area, depicted in darker green on the map above. These areas are typically near the two creeks that characterize this section of the island, Old Place and Saw Mill. These waterways are threatened by industries and highways bordering them on all sides, but they can be maintained through careful management and serve as a pilot project that could be implemented in New York City.
This pilot project would demonstrate how industry, in partnership with local land trusts, could use wetlands to filter runoff from sites to ensure it is cleaned before entering major waterways. If industrial areas were required to keep a minimum percentage of their land as wetlands, it would help to treat runoff and mitigate flooding in the area.
Sea level rise is predicted to reach 10 feet in the coming century, with an approximate rise of 25 feet during catastrophic events. The maps on the left show how much of this area would be affected in these scenarios. As we build up areas to mitigate the worst effects of flooding and prepare Staten Island to face some of the worst flooding these communities have witnessed, wetland protection will be critical.
The final piece of the puzzle is therefore creating five distinct wetland sites that will be managed as a part of this community land trust. Each of these sites will connect to the railway path that runs throughout the trust, and each site will respond directly to the industrial processes directly neighboring it. Three depicted here are the Great Wetland (Amazon), the Treatment Trains (neighboring Big Apple Ready Mix and Pratt Industries) and the Gateway to Fresh Kills (abuts DSNY, Pratt, Con Edison, and Fresh Kills). Each of these sites would protect wetlands and implement various types of treatment pools to slow down runoff and collect pollutants in controlled areas. Certain pathways would also be elevated so as to allow visitors to pass through the wetlands without disturbing sensitive habitats.
The plan on the left, the Great Wetland, would serve as a protected area for the leopard frog and a gathering place for the hundreds of workers at the Amazon warehouse (the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the country). It would also demonstrate how former road layouts and the remnants of industry could be repurposed into treatment ponds to clean the water.