Battery Park City is an agency that islocated in the southern part of Manhattan in New York City. The authority ofthe agency decided to reclaim the 37-hectare piece of land where river Hudson passedpreviously. The agency is responsible for putting up a community that isplanned with residential areas and development of parks and open air spaces inthe region (Doud, 2011). Two thirds of the area in which the planned communitystands, is occupied by parks. To have the ability to run the agency’s affairsthe authority comes up with an annually budgets. The budget plan for the year 2016and 2017 was estimated to be $213,531,739.
This budget is an estimate of theyear’s expected revenues, its assets and its expenses. In the 19thand 20th century, the legislature of the New York State identified asite south of the Manhattan Island for housing development. During the processof reclamation workers and constructors stopped the construction after therealization of docks that were sunken, bulkheads that were old and ships thatwere also sunken.
In the year 1960, a private organization decided to refillthe land. However, Nelson Rockefeller the governor expressed his desire todevelop the area again as a distinct project. After a period of time thelegislation of New York granted the governor permission to reestablish the areaseparately and in 1968 the Battery Park City and its administration wasfounded.
The mission of the agency was to grow the lower side of the island ofManhattan and encourage people to reside there by introducing residential area,parks and open areas. Over the years of development, the agency’s mission haschanged to be designing, constructing, harmonizing and maintaining an unrestrictedarea for domestic, park areas, profit-making and retail buildings(“Battery Park City,2014). The Battery Park cityagency is headed by a board of directors who are responsible for the running ofthe daily activities of the agency. The top management of the agency iscomprised of Andrew M. Cuomo is the governor of the agency and Dennis Mehiel isthe chairman and the chief executive officer if the agency. The politicalleadership of the agency is greatly coordinated to ensure that all the segmentsin the agency are working in harmony to ensure that the goals and objectives ifthe agency are met timely. The governor and the chairman of the agency aremandated with the responsibility of appointing leaders to head other sectionsof the agency for instance, the finance department, the human resources and theIT departments (Reporter: A Publication of the Hugh L.
Carey Battery ParkCity Authority ,2000). The civil service leadership of Battery Park city isresponsible for offering the residents of the area with the necessary publicamenities and services and this is achieved because it works with other leadersof other departments in the agency. The agency attractedmany people and institutions that offered to work with it in bid to improve thelives of the people living in it and also in bid to conserve energy by goinggreen. The agency attracted the attention of a government official called Nick whohas been a political analyst on safety. Nick since become a stakeholder andhelping the agency to come up with a program aimed at modernizing Battery Parkcity. The authority of the city has also attracted the attention of the Universityof Canada due to its willingness to go green in its activities.
The initiativeof introducing green energy to be used in the park has been greatly supportedby the administration of the university and as a result the institution iswilling to work with Battery Park administration agency to achieve this establishment.In that case Nick among other individual stakeholders and the University ofCanada are of great importance to achieving the goals of the agency ((Growinga Green Community: The Battery Park City Story, 2008). The agency has over theyears grown to be successful however there are challenges and difficulties thatit has to face. The park has attracted ahuge number of people willing to be residents and investors therefore thewebsite created cannot handle the flow of applications thus the employees are highlyoverstretched and overloaded with applications thus the management of applicationsbecomes a challenge (“Battery Park City,2014).
Other challenges facing theagency is the likelihood of terror attacks such as experienced in September 11,2001 and the unpredictable climate changes that at some point resulted to asand storm in the area. These challenges are unpredictable and are beyond thecontrol of the leadership or management of the agency. Other challenges facingthe agency are generated by the residents of the park. The park has beenestablished in an area that once harbored a river that had docks for ships thusmany economic activities were carried out in the area. The activities that priortook place at the river formed a basis of historical site and this is inaddition to the river as a natural resource. The events that took place so thatthe river would come to an end also are a good source of historicalinformation. Due to these historic occurrences,some residents feel that it would be important to set up a seaport that ishistoric which would strain the budget of the agency.
Another individualizedchallenge facing the agency is that some shareholders and residents of the parkfeel that the board of Administration needs to be change and replaced with newmembers (Smithsimon, 2011). These challenges are political as they are as aresult of difficulties in the coordination and relationship of the interestgroups in the agency. The Battery Park city agency and authority has been asuccess story in the line of development in the urban sector. The agency has beenvery fruitful and has attained its main goal of transforming the abandoned landto fit human existence. This can be attested to by the many applications madeto the agency by residents, government institutions and the investors. Theagency is effective and efficient in its provision of services as it hasdeveloped a database that will be used to directly respond to its applicantsvia their emails. The rate of responsiveness of the authority of the agency issatisfactory to the members and their customers.
The good working environmentbetween the political leadership and the civil service leadership of the agencyprovides a smooth flow of activities in the agency this being an indication andreflection of its accountability to the stakeholders, the leadership and theofficials (Doud, 2011). The fact that there is a great number of personsinterested of being part of the battery park city family shows that thecustomers and potential customers view the activities of the agency arelegitimate. The employees of the city agency are responsible for dealing withthe many applications by their customers this is therefore a reflection thatthe workforce in the agency is competent and works professionally. The board ofdirectors of the agency should be ready to face the challenges in the agencyand be ready to deal with them head on (Smithsimon, 2011). The board ofdirectors should also adopt a policy of engaging the residents in its decisionmaking process through public participation to ensure that the likes andpreferences of the customers are easily addressed.
