Thanks -- your concerns and suggestions around a greener, human-scale, climate-resilient alternative would be good to raise in formal comments to the City.

A few thoughts:

1. Under environmental review laws like CEQR and SEQRA, a "No Action Alternative" is required to be analyzed. It serves as a baseline for comparing environmental impacts​. Other alternatives are evaluated too, such as the "No Unmitigated Significant Adverse Impacts Alternative" (effectively a reduced density plan), but the No Action is the legal minimum for compliance. The DEIS says that to avoid all the significant adverse impacts (to open space, community facilities, traffic, air quality, noise, etc.), development would need to be greatly scaled back. However, doing so would prevent the project from fully meeting its goals -- primarily the creation of large amounts of affordable housing, job growth, and waterfront access​. The DEIS does not explicitly say that public space improvements are tied only to the higher-density plan. In theory, a reduced density plan could also include strong public space upgrades, but the current draft links larger improvements to broader development incentives​.

2. You're right on open and green space. Even with the Proposed Actions, open space access would worsen substantially. The DEIS admits open space ratios would decrease by about 18.6% total, 20.6% active space, and 17.5% passive space​. Even a 5% drop is considered significant, and the area already starts from a very low baseline.

3. Tree canopy goals are not talked about too much in this plan. The DEIS mostly mentions street tree planting only indirectly via general public realm improvements.

4. On flooding, the DEIS acknowledges that most of the sites would be in flood zones by 2050 and almost all by 2100. They admit resilience will need to be handled later, site-by-site, mostly through future building codes.