What’s happening in the southeast corner of Van Cortlandt Park?

That’s what local residents and activists were asking since barricades were spotted in recent weeks along Jerome Avenue by East 212th Street in an area adjacent to the now infamous Croton Water Filtration Plant (CWFP), the most expensive public works project ever built by the city, one which went years behind schedule, cost taxpayers roughly $4 billion when it was finally completed in 2015, and now supplies the city with between 10 and 30 percent of its water.

After some back and forth with various city agencies, it turns out the barricades in Van Cortlandt Park were set up for the construction of a parking lot intended for users of the nearby Mosholu Golf Course, according to the city Department of Design and Construction (DDC). The lot is part of an $84 million project to build a clubhouse and revitalize the landscape.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) dated June 9, 2004, the city Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the city Department of Parks & Recreation (DPR) agreed on a golf course renewal plan atop the original CWFP site, on the basis that this site would ultimately be selected as the preferred location for the water plant project.

The terms of the MOU were that, if selected and upon completion of the 10-story, 400,000 square-foot underground facility, DEP would fund the construction of a new permanent golf driving range in the vicinity of the existing Mosholu Golf Course, as well as a new, permanent clubhouse to replace the demolished one.

When Norwood residents saw fencing erected adjacent to the CWFP site, they became suspicious that the perimeter of the 43-acre alienated lands agreed under the CWFP’s golf renewal plan was being breached.

Driving the community’s suspicion is the accumulated knowledge of environmentalists like Karen Argenti who know that city parkland is cheap and easy to build on, and that it’s precisely for this reason that the city alienates parkland for development rather than acquiring new land for projects.

“Once they start taking land, it gets us all worried,” said Argenti. “We just don’t want to lose any parkland.”

But Ian Michaels from the DDC, the agency which is now managing the construction, provided an explanation to the Norwood News on July 1, stating in an email, “The fence that went up two weeks ago is a temporary construction fence to protect the public during work, and does not represent the final boundary of the project being built behind it.”

While activists have concerns the project will knock out parkland, the DDC views the planned parking lot as an extension of parkland since it will ultimately be used by Mosholu Golf Course members and therefore does not violate the boundary of the 43-acre alienated lands allocated under law for the original CWFP.

“No construction that is controlled by park alienation rules is taking place beyond the park alienation boundaries,” said Michaels in his email.

This is not the first time questions have been raised by residents during the project’s lifecycle, which is overseen by the Croton Facilities Monitoring Committee (CFMC) which, itself, falls under the scope of the DEP.

Referring to the DEP, local activist, Gary Axelbank told the Norwood News, “It is outrageous that after all these years and after numerous discussions with the community, there are still questions about what is this for? What is that for? It’s just an example that what we all had said at the beginning, that this was an out-of-control agency, that has a hard time responding to community concerns.”

Michaels acknowledged that the barricades went up without due notice to residents. “In the future, advisories will be issued before work that affects the public is initiated,” he said. “DDC will also issue quarterly newsletters on progress and will continue to report regularly to the Monitoring Committee.”

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.