1) The park is a very badly designed architectual knock-off of Barrigan by mediocre architects without any of the beauty. A much better design could have been done. The plan should have been open to a public architectual competition. Something should have been done that represented the neighborhood. If you don't take advantage of the waterfront in an interesting way, then you lose it--that is the problem with the New York State general city plan. New York could have been as wonderful as Venice. Instead it is planning in the worst way, where the populace never sees the water. The Queens West plan with all these sky-scrapers on the waterfront is hideous.
2) I think the Alternate Plan is very reasonable; you have planned development, architectually well thought-out, with a nice green belt at the waterfront, which is the most civilized way to do something. It keeps development on the same scale--the wonderful thing about Long Island City is the open-air feeling.