Say No to the Hudson River Park Nid TAX

Dear New York City Councilmembers;

We the undersigned are residents of the proposed NID. We ask you to stop the Hudson River Park authorities from imposing an extra tax on blocks near the river, from the Battery to 59th Street.

There are six reasons this tax is unreasonable and unfair:


1. Hudson River Park is used heavily by out-of-town tourists and other residents of the city. This is not a neighborhood park - it is a city-wide open space, like Central Park. Do blocks near Central Park pay an extra tax? No.

2. The Hudson River Park administration overspent on deluxe, high-maintenance landscaping and decoration, but failed to budget for maintenance, and failed to plan for rising sea levels. The have too many staff and are always over budget. Now they want nearby residents to pay extra, forever, for their mismanagement. 


3. They are calling it a Neighborhood Improvement District (NID), but that is not true. The Battery to 59th Street is not a neighborhood - it touches on nine or ten different neighborhoods. And with a real NID, neighborhood residents decide what to spend the money on - but this Hudson River Park tax would simply go to the Hudson River Park Trust authorities without any direct oversight by residents.

4. They claim that the Park increases the property values of nearby blocks – (which we dispute on factual grounds), and so an extra tax is fair. But even if it were hypothetically true that property values are higher, then normal property taxes are higher too. An extra tax beyond that higher normal tax would be completely unfair.

5. Our property taxes already rise year after year.

6. The governance system is not a one person one vote system. Co-ops do not have the same voting rights at condos.