North Shore Staten Island Photo Courtesy of Google Earth

Soon, you will read our next report about the Working West Shore 2030 plan, which was released late 2008, much earlier than the most recent North Shore Plan. While the West Shore plan was released much earlier, we’ll look at the most recent North Shore plan this past December. So, we’ll work a bit backwards. We did this because the North Shore plan was a bit more ambiguous than the West Shore plan and wanted to look into it with a bit more detail. While some have been critical of the West Shore Plan, however, by far and large, it was an excellent plan, and well detail why it works so well. So, on to the North Shore plan which was put together buy the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of City Planning, whom look to take on the next chapter of Staten Island real estate development.

Since  the report was recently released, not much research has been done to find out the needs of the North Shore, as opposed to the wants. Unlike the Working West Shore 2030 plan, North Shore 2030 does not have a complete Market Analysis Report—there is only an Executive Summary of the report currently available.  While this may be, there is some pertinent information regarding land usage in the study area.

The study area is made up of five square miles along Staten Island’s North Shore. While this may be less than half of the West Shore’s study area, there are still big plans for these five miles.  The areas which make up the study area are 0.7 square miles of the neighborhood of St. George, 1.5 square miles of the New Brighton and Snug Harbor area, 1.5 square miles of Port Richmond’s neighborhood, and 1.3 square miles of the Elm Park and Mariners Harbor areas.

The Market Analysis Executive Summary, which was released in February of 2009, explains what is to be expected in these areas over the next ten years.  It does this by giving some insight as to the current conditions of the area.  North Shore 2030: Improving and Reconnecting the North Shore’s Unique and Historic Assets was a study released in December of 2011.  It explains the steps that will be taken to improve the study area.

The Executive Summary of the Market Analysis deals with the different aspects of the Real Estate Market. This includes maritime and industrial businesses, offices, residences, and retail businesses.

Roughly one quarter of Staten Island’s industrial space is located within the study area. Of this land, 14.6 percent is vacant and some of the occupied land it isn’t even being used by waterfront-related businesses, limiting growth.  If this land were to be used strictly, or mostly, for waterfront-related businesses, this could create 600 jobs in only ten years.

Similar to industrial space, the office space within the study area makes up a little over one quarter of Staten Island’s office space as a whole.  The area has a 4 percent vacancy rate, but in the next ten years, to can see the creation of 139,000 to 171,000 square feet of office space, which could create 455 to 555 jobs.
As of 2009, the median housing price of the study area was $100,000 less than Staten Island as a whole.  Over the next ten years, Staten Island is expected to have an additional 19,000 residences. One sixth of these houses are expected to be within the study area.

While retail in Richmond County does not attract non-Staten Islanders, the creation of more retail space means more jobs for Staten Islanders.  The vacancy rate for retail space of the study area is 2.8 percent.  Over the next ten years, this could see the development of 92,000 to 190,000 square feet of retail space.
Similar to the Working West Shore 2030 study, there are four strategies for North Shore 2030: Create, Reconnect, Support, and Improve.

The first section basically offers ways in which to implement what we spoke of above. This would be the creation of quality jobs in the study area.  It deals mostly with the expansion of the maritime industry along the waterfront.

The main idea of the second section is to reconnect people with the waterfront. This would be done through the development of existing parks, as well as the creation of new parks, among other things.

The third section was created to support each neighborhood. One way this would be implemented would be to rezone certain areas to retain the special characteristics of each neighborhood.

The fourth section deals with the improvement of connections and mobility. This section would mostly impact the Department of Transportation, who would work on improving the access to workplaces and places to shop.

If you recall, many Staten Islanders were very supportive of the Working West Shore 2030 plan. After seeing the North Shore 2030 study, however, many were displeased.  Residents believe that all of the studies done on Staten Island are a waste of money—not to mention the price these projects will actually cost.  St. George is the major transportation hub of Staten Island.  In order to improve the North Shore and Staten Island as a whole, they believe that something must be done with this area.  Some examples would be a faster trip via the ferry and the reconstruction of the North Shore railway.

Staten Islanders have agreed that the time and money spent on these studies could be spent on executing past studies. Instead of jumping from one area to the next, the City could stick with one thing and see it to its fruition.  Only then should they think about improving another area.  If the City had worked more on implementation, rather than planning, most of these projects would probably have been completed already.  If they keep singing the same old song, things will never get done and instead of looking toward 2030, we will be looking toward 3030.