Seonae Byeon (l.) and Tarry Hum.
Queens College professor gives educational
tour of luxury developments in Flushing
BY MAX PARROTT
For over the past decade,
Queens College professor
Tarry Hum has researched
downtown Flushing as the
borough’s hub for Korean
and Chinese immigrants
transitioned into an epicenter
of large-scale commercial
development and
multinational investments.
On Oct. 21, Hum organized
a teaching tour of the area’s
luxury developments with
community activists Bobby
Nathan and Seonae Byeon of
the MinKwon Center for Community
Action, an immigrant
and tenant rights group.
The group led a presentation
that examined how the
transnational investment
in luxury retail and apartment
complexes has threatened
the affordable housing
stock in the neighborhood,
and contributed to a form of
gentrification that stands in
stark contrast from the rest
of the city.
Where gentrification normally
means an increase in
the white middle class population
as immigrants and
people of color are displaced,
the tour’s speakers said that
in Flushing, the largest demographic
influx consists of
wealthier immigrants from
mainland China.
The tour itself focused on
some of the prominent developments
that speakers pointed
to as the root of this trend.
In tracing the path of luxury
development, Hum drew attention
to one international
real estate company in particular:
the F&T Group.
Over the past 12 years,
F&T spearheaded five major
projects there all within a
half-mile of each other. The
Tangram building, One Fulton
Square, Flushing Commons,
Queens Crossing,
and Flushing Town Center
all feature a combination of
mixed-use housing and commercial
space. Three of them
spread over 1 million square
feet.
In her presentation introducing
the tour, Hum said
that the increasing scarcity
of affordable housing is the
result of the city’s failure to
address the neighborhood’s
zoning. In 2016, the de Blasio
administration abandoned
a rezoning of downtown
Flushing after encountering
resistance from community
groups and Councilman Peter
Koo.
The zoning would have
required a percentage of affordable
housing under the
city’s mandatory inclusionary
housing policy, but also
would have increased allowable
density.
“I think that for most community
activists now, the
idea of rezoning is mostly an
upzoning, right? There’s a lot
of resistance to that because
that’s a catalyst for investment
and for gentrification–
when you change the as-ofright
parameters of what you
can build, the different uses,”
said Hum.
The city ultimately could
not come to an agreement
with the community activists,
backed by Councilman
Koo. But in the wake of the
zoning’s collapse, Hum said
that the luxury market rate
residential developments has
continued, now without the
proposed city investments in
the neighborhood.
Reach reporter Max Parrott
by e-mail at mparrott@
schnepsmedia.com or by
phone at (718) 260-2507.
FLUSHING TIMES (USPS#03925) is published weekly by Queens CNG LLC, 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY 11361, (718) 229-0300. The entire contents of this publication are copyright 2019. All rights reserved.
The newspaper will not be liable for errors appearing in any advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Periodicals postage paid at Flushing, N.Y. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the
FLUSHING TIMES C/O Queens CNG LLC 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, N.Y. 11361
2 TIMESLEDGER, OCT. 25-31, 2019 QNS.COM
/schnepsmedia.com
/QNS.COM
