Staten Island officials want greenway among developments

Staten Island officials are working to create a walkway in the midst of four new private developments on the island’s North Shore.

With debris still lingering at Baystreet Landing from Superstorm Sandy and damage from long before still plaguing the pier, officials have applied for Sandy relief funds to protect the area from flooding and to create a greenway that would connect the two ends of the shore.

The Bay Street Landing walkway and pier sit in the middle of contiguous plans for the Staten Island Homeport, Lighthouse Point and the Empire Outlet Mall and New York Wheel.

“It’s privately owned. It sustained so much damage, in the tens of millions of dollars worth of damage, that you have to ask the question: Is it correct to ask the homeowners here to foot the bill for it, or they can just put a fence around it and close it off?” Leticia Remauro of Community Board 1 told NY1.

To make sure pedestrians aren’t forgotten, the community board applied for Sandy relief funds. While the four projects are underway, there’s no easy way to get from one side of the shoreline to the other.

“The idea is to connect everything. We’ve got over a billion dollars of investment on this waterfront and if we don’t think in a forward kind of way about how we can get people off the boat walking both north and south, then I think we’re going to miss the boat, if you will,” Remauro said. [NY1] — Claire Moses