Fresh kills master plan paints a prettier picture.

If the average person were asked to describe Fresh Kills, it's likely "lush greenery" would not be among the first phrases offered up. According to City Planning Director Amanda Burden, it should be.

"If you go out to Fresh Kills today you see beautiful grasslands and wetlands and trees," Burden said of the former Staten Island landfill site, which the city is converting into a 2,200 acre park. "Nature has given the city a head start on greening the Fresh Kills."

The city announced recently the release of the Draft Master Plan (DMP) for Fresh Kills Park, a blueprint for reclaiming the largest landfill in the country for public use.

Developed by architecture firm Field Operations, the 61-page DMP for Fresh Kills calls for a range of diverse habitats as well as an extensive system of park drives and bikeways that will provide Staten Islanders with easy access into and through the park.

The plan envisions five distinct sub-areas within Fresh Kills, each planned around its physical attributes and responding to the desires expressed by the public during outreach.

The DMP features areas for recreational activities not previously undertaken in city parks, including mountain biking and kayaking. It also details how landfill closure, monitoring and phased access will ensure public safety. To achieve the goal of using renewable energy, a meteorological tower will be mounted on the North Mound in the next few weeks to assess the site's potential for wind-generated energy.

With the DMP complete, the Department of Parks and Recreation will spearhead construction of the park with an initial allocation of $100 million in city capital funds for the first phase of the project.

The first recreational facility at Fresh Kills, the Owl Hollow Soccer Fields at the southeastern boundary of the site, should be completed for play next spring. After environmental review, additional parts of the park could open to the public by 2009. To complete this massive project, Burden says, will take a bit longer.

"Central Park took 25 years to build and this too will be a long time in the making ... It's a massive area unlike any other in New York," Burden said.

"But one in which by, 2009, people will have access to some of the more passive, flatter areas."

Field Operations is expected to continue its involvement with the project through environmental and land use reviews and as a design consultant for phase-one improvements..

The five planned sub-areas of Fresh Kills Park are:

The center of the Park, known as the Confluence, is shaped by the Richmond, Main and Fresh Kills creeks.

Taking advantage of this unique feature, the plan proposes that the focus of this area be on the water and related active and passive recreation, community gatherings, cultural and limited park-related commercial uses.

North Park is envisioned as a lightly programmed natural area with neighborhood recreation uses adjacent to the Travis community.

South Park includes active recreation. The South Mound, in this same area, is well suited for sports requiring a highly varied terrain such as mountain biking.

East Park's large, open spaces offer opportunities for recreation, possibly including a golf course, and for large public art installations such as the overlooks and interpretive lighting proposed by the Department of Sanitation's Percent for Art Artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

The West Park offers access to long-distance trails or cross-country running and skiing and other passive and un-programmed active recreation.