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State officials have turned off the lights on a plan to construct a power plant on the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront — clearing the way for the creation of a long-sought new park.

Residents and elected officials hailed last week’s decision to prevent TransGas from building the 1,100-megawatt natural gas-fired plant on industrial land that the city wants to turn into Bushwick Inlet Park between North 10th and North 12th streets.

“I could not be more thrilled at this decision,” said Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D–Greenpoint).

“To build a power plant in an area that already has more than its fair share of pollution and industry and to do it in the place of open space would quite simply be a travesty and a betrayal.”

Since stimulating intense development in North Brooklyn with a 2005 upzoning, the Bloomberg administration has sought to create 28 acres of parkland along the East River, but the powerplant’s prior claim to the plot has halted the proposed bicycle paths, soccer fields, picnic grounds and wetland preserves.

“If the power plant would have moved forward, it would have been impossible to do a park that the community wants and deserves,” said Community Board 1 member Evan Thies.

TransGas first pitched its plan for an above-ground plant in 2002 after purchasing the rights to the contaminated land from Bayside Fuel Oil.

The State Siting Board, which has jurisdiction over powerplant locations, ruled against that design in 2004, so last June, TransGas released designs for an underground plant surrounded by a public park.

Before that plan could advance, the board ordered TransGas to purchase property rights from the city — which would not budge. As a result, TransGas asked the Siting Board to revisit its above-ground plan.

But the second time wasn’t the charm.

City officials said they would now move to acquire the land — which is already zoned as parkland — through condemnation, a Parks Department spokesman said.

Bayside Fuel Oil Depot Corporation would not respond to multiple calls from The Brooklyn Paper.

But TransGas president Adam Victor says that his fight isn’t over yet. He plans to appeal the Siting Board’s decision.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

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