We will create or enhance at least one public plaza in every community
Even before the City's Department of Transportation (DOT) finished the Willoughby Street Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn, people started to gather at the colorful collection of chairs, tables, umbrellas, and planters. The plaza soon transformed a stretch of roadway primarily used for parking into an inviting and attractive open space adjacent to shops and cafes. (See case study: WIlloughby Street)

Each of the city's 59 Community Boards contains at least one opportunity to transform underutilized street space into a successful plaza, as envisioned by Jane Jacobs and others, flanked by a mix of workers, residents, and stores that attract flows of people throughout the day; broad exposure to sunlight; buildings in scale with the open space.

Approximately 31 plaza projects are currently underway or planned to be completed by 2009. While the city already has many existing successful plazas, until now project selection has depended largely on funding and convenience. Starting this year, we will add a new process to the selection criteria: community initiative and need.

DOT will work with other agencies to identify additional sites and opportunities, prioritizing the neighborhoods with the lowest ratio of open space to population.

We will reach out to those communities to discuss potential sites and opportunities. The scale and design of these plazas will vary widely, just as the scale and design of the city's neighborhoods vary widely. Four new or enhanced plaza spaces will be completed per year until every community board has at least one. In every case, the communities will be consulted on sites and how the space is designed, constructed, and programmed.

Progress (as of 4/22/08):
On August 8, the City opened a new public plaza in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. DOT has initiated a plaza working group with local non-profits and academic institutions to draft the Public Plaza Initiative, a competitive, community-based program that will identify sites for new or enhanced plazas to ensure that all New Yorkers live within a 10-minute walk of open space. DOT is currently collaborating with the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) to implement maintenance, programming, and training for plaza partners and is actively seeking a private partner to build the capacity of these groups to ensure the plazas are well maintained, and actively programmed to ensure the groups can develop the financial stability to operate the plazas in perpetuity. The agency plans to launch the Public Plaza Initiative by summer 2008. DOT is also in the process of developing an RFP to hire professional consultants to design at least two PlaNYC-related public plazas per year, which it aims to release in summer 2008. In addition, DOT continues to draft the community plaza identification process, monitor the first 25 projects currently in various stages of development, and review and identify new plaza projects.