input sought for chelsea park

| 07 Apr 2016 | 06:12

A former Sanitation Department parking lot on West 20th St., between Sixth and Seventh Avenue, will be converted into a park. Photo: Jeffrey Kopp

Chelsea residents will have the opportunity to design the newest neighborhood park, to be built at 140 West 20th St., between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.

A group of neighborhood residents, the Friends of 20th Street Park, have mobilized support for a park since 2010. In November, the Parks & Recreation Department announced in November that it would contribute $4.3 million toward construction on the 10,000 square-foot lot, formerly a parking facility for the Department of Sanitation.

Community members will be invited to give input on what they would like to see in the new park at an April 12 meeting with Parks Department designers at the Sixth Avenue Elementary School.

A Parks spokeswoman, Crystal Howard, said department planners and designers will be present to share information about the space, after which community members will have a “facilitated brainstorming ... [where they will] have their voices heard and dictate shared priorities.”

Parks designers will then develop a schematic design that will be presented to Community Board 4 for public review.

“After years of effort by the community, we were able to win a new public park for Chelsea. Now it’s time to design the park. This is the fun part. The Parks Department wants to know what our vision is, and this is a great opportunity for community members to give input,” said Councilman Corey Johnson, who has supported development of the park at the site. His office is now involved with its design and construction.

“We want this park to be a product of community input,” Johnson’s chief of staff, Erik Bottcher, said. “It’s not often that a brand-new public park happens and that the community will be able to help design it.”

The question of what to build on the lot had been a source of debate, with some community members advocating for affordable housing there.

Johnson has suggested that an affordable housing development could be built on what is now a nearly 25,000-square-foot lot at 11th Avenue near 40th Street, which is now parking lot used by the NYPD.