At the meeting of the Franchise and Concession Review Committee, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer voted against amending a concession agreement between the City of New York and Saker Aviation to operate tourist helicopter flights out of the Downtown Manhattan Heliport.
“There should be no tourist helicopters in New York City, period. They provide little economic payback and instead bombard our communities with unrelenting noise and pollution, which is why they’ve been banned elsewhere in the five boroughs. Beyond that, this flawed compromise fails to give the City the enforceable oversight it would need to restore any semblance of peace and quiet for hundreds of thousands of residents. That’s why today I voted emphatically NO,” Comptroller Stringer said.
The Comptroller outlined four specific inadequacies in the current proposal, which he said fails to:
- Impose any real accountability on air and noise quality monitoring by spelling out what steps the Economic Development Corporation can take when either exceeds allowable limits.
- Define what “best efforts” are to reduce idling and its accompanying negative health impacts.
- Codify how often Saker must research technologies designed to further mitigate helicopter noise and emissions, and to implement them when “commercially feasible.”
- Update the project’s environmental review, which has not been done since 2007.
“Tourist helicopters provide limited benefits to New York City while imposing significant health and environmental risks on our residents. It’s time to ground non-essential tourist flights once and for all,” Stringer said.
