Photo: Bachner for the Daily News

One of the biggest adverse impacts of the Domino rezoning is the impact on community-wide open space. As I’ve said before, despite a huge allocation of open space in the project (well above the minimum required by zoning), the project actually reduces the per capita open space rather significantly. In a community that ranks near the bottom in city-wide open space rankings, that is simply not acceptable. Also not acceptable are the significant shadow impacts on Grand Ferry Park – Domino will put the park into shadow for an additional 4 to 6 hours per day, year round.

In talking about mitigation, I’ve mainly discussed reducing the density of the project – attacking the denominator. But what if you could something about the numerator? Say, for the sake of argument that there was a large city-owned site directly adjacent to the Domino site. Two-blocks worth, right on the river. One that includes buildings that could be converted for recreational uses and open space that could be readily converted into a waterfront esplanade.

Something like this, perhaps?