The Urban Spotted Owl

Activists seeking to stop the Parks Department from renovating Washington Square Park take things to an absurd point, charging that construction in the urban park will damage the habitat of a red-tailed hawk:

The lawsuits keep on mounting against the embattled Washington Square Park renovation plan, threatening to further stall, if not outright kill, it. Two new lawsuits take aim at the $16 million project on environmental grounds. Among their charges are that the renovation will chainsaw down a full third of the trees in the park’s northwest quadrant, create pedestrian bottlenecks and threaten the habitat of a juvenile red-tailed hawk that recently took up residency and started hunting in the park.

Last Friday, two plaintiffs, Jonathan Greenberg, coordinator of the Open Washington Square Park Coalition; and Luther Harris, author of the definitive history book on Washington Square, filed the first of the two lawsuits. An Article 78 suit in State Supreme Court, it charges that an environmental impact assessment, or E.A.S., the Parks Department did for the project was faulty and that a more lengthy and involved environmental impact statement, or E.I.S., must be done.

In addition, the Emergency Coalition to Save Washington Square Park, or ECO, was expected to file suit in State Supreme Court on Wed., Jan. 24, also challenging the renovation on environmental grounds.

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On Tuesday, attorney Joel Kupferman, representing ECO, said he couldn’t publicly discuss much yet about the second suit, which he hoped to file the next day. However, he said, it does contain a bird specialist’s affidavit on the significance of the new hawk’s presence.

“The bird story is a good part of it,” Kupferman said. “The long-range damage — what’s going to happen to the trees — what’s going to happen to the root system” are other significant aspects of the suit, he added.

Councilmember Alan Gerson, however, feels that not court, but the recently started Washington Square Park Task Force, set up under the so-called Gerson-Quinn Agreement with Parks on the renovation, is the best venue to solve disagreements.

“An E.I.S. is not a binding document,” Gerson said. “We’ve seen E.I.S.es that don’t result in any significant change on a project. To go to court — you don’t know how the court’s going to rule. I think enough is enough. We have a process in place. I think the best thing at this point is to work it out through the task force. Under the Gerson-Quinn Agreement the Parks Department is required to work with the task force in good faith.”

As for the trees, Gerson said he believed Parks’ revised bid documents now accurately reflect how many will be removed.

If the renovation doesn’t move forward soon, though, Gerson warned that more of the park will become “cordoned off, like the mounds.”

As for the hawk’s figuring prominently in Kupferman’s lawsuit, Gerson said, “This is the first I’m hearing of it — again, that issue could be dealt with through the task force.”

Location Scout: Washington Square Park.