Thumbs down for Innovation Queens

CB1 votes down proposed $2 billion redevelopment

A rally preceding last week’s Community Board 1 meeting pitted supporters and adversaries of Innovation QNS against each other, with mixed feelings about the project that seeks to rezone five city blocks to build a mixed-use residential and commercial district in Astoria.

Some seven hours later, the board voted 24-8 in disapproval of the project, marking a setback for the proposed $2 billion redevelopment.

Before the roll call vote was called, Elizabeth Erion, co-chair of the board’s Land Use and Zoning committee, labeled the project as “unprecedented” for the western Queens community.

“We as a board over the years have supported large scale developments,” Erion said. “We supported the Astoria Cove and recently the Hallets North development and we’re open to redeveloping areas of Astoria and Long Island City, as long as the development is appropriate, is contextual and it isn’t overbearing.”

The board was first introduced to the renovation project in December 2019, whose developers include the trio of Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silverstein Properties, and BedRock Real Estate Partners.

Earlier in June, the board’s Land Use committee voted 7-2 to not approve the project.

Erion cited longstanding issues that the board took into consideration, including the scale of the development, size of the buildings, the density of the project, as well as economic impacts it would have on the community.

“In those early meetings, and even now, some of the issues still remain,” Erion said.

She cited a May subcommittee meeting where a consensus was reached on how to proceed with the project’s recommendation.

“We agreed at that particular meeting, that the development as was proposed, as it was presented to us, was really an inappropriate development for the community and would have an impact on it in negative ways,” Erion said.

The proposed $2 billion development would allow for the construction of 12 towers between Northern Boulevard and 37th Street, ranging from eight to 27 stories tall. The redevelopment project also calls for 725—or 25 percent—of the 2,845 units to be affordable for those making $50,000 annually, and 60 percent of units to be within the price range of area median income.

Developers also tout the creation of 3,700 construction jobs that could last up to a decade, as well as 1,700 permanent jobs created. In addition, two acres of open space for play and leisure is included in the project.

CB1 board member Katie Ellman says that more open spaces in Astoria is a good thing, but cautioned her fellow board members on what the tradeoff for that would be under this redevelopment project.

“The tradeoff of what comes with that will lead to more inequity, displacement of residents, and just a complete change of our community,” Ellman, a third-generation Astoria resident, said. “So many of us are being pushed out due to the high cost of rent and high cost of living, especially families with young children. So what do we want our community to look like in the next year, five years, ten years? A vibrant community that is diverse in backgrounds, diverse in ages and diverse in incomes. My fear with this is that it will change the entire scope of Astoria.”

She added, “I can barely afford to live here now, how many of us will be pushed out?”

Board member Andre Stith voted in favor of the redevelopment, saying that he would not allow the project to dictate what his children can or can not aspire to.

“I’m not going to tell them that just because something is new and shiny, that they can’t afford it and it’s not for them,” Stith said. “I’m going to tell my kids to go out and get.”

During the public comment section of the meeting, which ran several hours long, Queens Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Grech voiced his approval of Innovation QNS, saying that the project does not include or require public funds for it to be implemented.

“There are a number of projects whose benefits do not come near Innovation QNS, that are being put forth and executed across the U.S. in places like Austin, Texas,” Grech said. “This is a great project that will create 2,000 apartments including 700 affordable homes.”

The project application will now receive a recommendation from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who has 30 days from the Wednesday, June 21 meeting to submit it. Next in the Uniform Land Use Review Process, or ULURP, the City Planning Commission will vote on the project. If approved, then it would be sent to the City Council for approval and a vote that would have lasting effects in western Queens.

Some opponents of the redevelopment plan, like Astoria resident Gil Lopez, say the ULURP process is broken, and called on their neighbors to continue to express their concerns with the developers.

“MIH (Mandatory Inclusionary Housing) and AMI (area median income) are nothing more than constructs of the real estate lobbyists,” Lopez said. “They are not affordable to the actual residents here, and that must be reformed.”

Lopez called the public engagement effort by developers as nothing more than a “PR stunt”.

“If the city and the community board want more open space, let’s take back the street we gave to Kaufman Astoria Studios and give it back to the people as a park,” Lopez said.

On Thursday, Queens Borough President Richards will hold a virtual public hearing on land use related to the proposed Innovation QNS applications.

Developers are specifically seeking a zoning map amendment, a series of three zoning text amendments and a series of zoning special permits pursuant to the large scale general development regulations in the zoning resolution.

A public live stream of the public hearing will be available at www.queensbp.org on Thursday, June 30 at 9:30 a.m.

Innovation QNS met with community backlash

The development team of Innovation QNS — a project that seeks to rezone five city blocks to build a mixed use residential and commercial district in Astoria — held a town hall meeting at the Museum of the Moving Image last week to discuss community outreach efforts.

Representatives from Kaufman Astoria Studios, BedRock Real Estate Partners, Urban Upbound, and Silverstein Properties gave a presentation and took questions from the hundreds of guests who attended the meeting.

The presentation was met with mixed reactions from union construction workers seeking employment and protestors who were holding signs and chanting “Our neighborhood, not your playground.”

The town hall meeting was announced shortly after Councilwoman Julie Won demanded more transparency and community outreach in a letter to the Innovation QNS team.

“This project has been in the works since 2020 and claims to have done extensive outreach in the community. Community Board 1, local residents, and housing organizations have all expressed concern about a lack of adequate community outreach especially in Spanish and Bangla,” Won wrote in the letter.

“Thus far, the amount of community engagement is insufficient for a project of this scale that will deeply impact not only those in the immediate vicinity, but also will have lasting impacts on the neighborhood as a whole.”

Despite numerous claims from elected officials and concerned residents of a lack of community engagement, the developers maintain the notion that they have and will continue to perform adequate outreach.

“We’ve tried to put this town hall together, we’ve done street canvassing at subway stations throughout the Community Board district and we went door-to-door canvassing in the neighborhood proximate to the sites,” Tracy Capune, vice president at Kaufman Astoria Studios, said.

“We’ve presented a variety of Zoom presentations to over 80 community-based organizations, we’ve held focus groups, we’ve done an online survey that got about 1,200 responses and we’re spreading the word in multiple languages across multiple channels,” she continued. “We are happy to continue to do this outreach, and we look forward to speaking with our local Council Member on how we can address the concerns to the outreach.”

A rally outside the town hall, organized by CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Astoria Not For Sale, Woodside on the Move , Astoria Tenants Union, Justice For All Coalition and Western Queens Community Land Trust , pointed out the flaws in Innovation QNS’ outreach approaches, as well as other reasons why they believe the project would be a disservice to the community.

Evie Hantzopoulos, an Astoria resident, member of Community Board 1 and executive director of the Queens Botanical Garden, referred to their community engagement efforts as “a joke,” citing the fact that the town hall meeting was held during the Orthodox Holy Week, Ramadan, and spring break — a time while many people are unavailable.

“I went to one of those places in the development, talked to the people working there, and they had no idea that their building, where their restaurant is, is part of this proposal and is going to be razed,” Hantzopoulos said.

She added that these types of rezonings are a “ripple effect,” and will further displace local tenants and small businesses in the surrounding area.

“Sometimes the qualifying rent is well above what the median income is for the people who live in that community. The people who desperately need this housing will not be able to qualify, let alone apply — and it’s a lottery system,” she said. “If you are going to construct this huge development, which is going to be over 75 percent unaffordable to the community, you have to know what you’re going to be charging for those. You’re not being transparent about that.”

Tracey Appelbaum, co-founder of BedRock Real Estate Partners, responded by saying that the development team understands the housing crisis present in New York City, and that they would provide 700 permanently affordable housing units. Twenty-five percent of the 2,800+ units would be affordable for those making $50,000 annually, and 60 percent of units would be within the price range of area median income.

The proposed $2 billion development would build 12 towers between Northern Boulevard and 37th Street, ranging from nine to 27 stories tall.

The towers would house over 2,800 apartments, offering more than 100 dedicated homes for seniors, as well as 5,400 on-site jobs and two acres of permanently publicly accessible open space.

NYS Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who rallied alongside the community groups, said that Astoria is in the midst of a massive displacement crisis.

He argued that developments like Innovation QNS actively contribute to the problem.

“If you have more than 2,000 market rate apartments coming here without a guarantee or commitment as to what those prices will be, we will simply see more and more landlords looking at those projected units as the new going rate for living in Astoria,” Mamdani said.

“I will never stand in opposition to affordable housing. What I will stand in opposition to are projects that masquerade as such,” he said. “That is where the genesis of my critique and opposition to this project comes from.”

Doreen Mohammed, a resident and CB1 member said: “As a working class, first generation Bangladeshi-American who grew up in Queens, I have seen firsthand how luxury developments like Innovation QNS are harmful for working class New Yorkers. They spike up the rents and cost of living in the immediate and surrounding areas. They yield violent displacement of people.”

“We need deeply, truly affordable, and accessible housing for all working class and poor New Yorkers,” Mohammed said.. “Innovation QNS will displace our vulnerable immigrant, working class, communities of color. This is why we must oppose this rezoning and fight to end this project.”

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