Agenda for Quality of Life/Community Update meeting tonight; more photos of the enormous fence at Dean Street

The agenda for tonight's "Community Update Meeting," apparently a new name for the Quality of Life meeting hosted by Forest City Ratner and Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), was circulated yesterday.

(The meeting is 6-8 pm, at the Shirley Chisholm State Office Building 55 Hanson Place, first floor conference room.)

Dean Street looking toward Carlton Avenue

The rather bland agenda items, including updates from the Department of Transportation, ESDC, and Forest City, obscure some of the significant neighborhood concerns, however localized.

See my separate post about significant problems with traffic circulation around the arena, exacerbated, it seems, by less than candid information about encroachment on Sixth Avenue.

What about the fence?

Dean Street looking toward Carlton Avenue

Another topic should be continued community frustration about the enormous 16-foot fence, which extends deep into Dean Street, Carlton Avenue, and Vanderbilt Avenue.

We've heard Forest City Ratner, backed by ESDC, say the extension of the fence is required by the significant support required.

That's part of it, but also remember that the fence, which seems to extend far beyond any work area as of now (see Dean Street photo at left), will later contain significant amounts of equipment, notably cranes.

See the screenshot below, from the presentation at the Quality of Life Committee meeting in November. In other words, this is the quiet before the storm.

And the response, I suspect, will be, essentially, tough noogies: the state approved a project with "significant adverse impacts" to those on the nearest blocks. But without a larger amount of information about how the plan was conceived, and any expert response about an alternative, any critic is at a disadvantage.

Dean Street looking toward Vanderbilt Avenue

During construction: the Dean Street fence