Real Estate
Senior Housing
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I MARCH 2018 17
With an estimated 20,000 seniors on
waiting lists for housing in his district,
Councilman Costa Constantinides an-nounced
his plan to build an affordable
housing development to help “older New
Yorkers age with dignity.”
Constantinides announced on March
1 that he would ask the city to build
housing on a municipal parking lot 31-
07 31st St. to accommodate 100 to
150 units. Council District 22, which
encompasses Astoria and parts of
Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and
Woodside features the highest number
of seniors on affordable senior housing
lists in the city.
In total, the councilman wants to
build at least 500 units of affordable
housing before his term is up in 2021.
“Our city is undergoing an af-fordable
housing crisis, with rents
rising and many unable to stay in
their neighborhoods,” he said. “Our
senior citizens are perhaps the most
vulnerable group in the midst of our
affordability crisis. We must make
sure that we foster inclusive com-munity
development and keep our
neighborhood affordable for seniors
who want to stay in the neighborhood
they call home by actively seeking
opportunities to build more affordable
housing units.”
The site, which is more than 20,000
square feet, would need to go through
a Uniform Land Use Review Proce-dure
(ULURP), where input would be
gathered from the local Community
Board, City Council, Borough Presi-dent
and City Planning.
In a letter to Alicia Glen, the deputy
mayor for Housing and Economic
Development, the councilman argued
that the site’s proximity to public
transportation, a supermarket and
local shops, make it a desirable place
for the neighborhood’s seniors.
“Its proximity to mass transit and lo-cal
shopping offers seniors the unique
chance to live in an environment with
many opportunities for socialization –
a critical component to mental and
physical health as we age,” he wrote
in the letter.
The proposal received support from
other community groups like the Hel-lenic
American Neighborhood Action
Committee (HANAC), which operates
the HANAC Corona Senior residence at
54-17 101st St., LiveOn NY and Catho-lic
Charities Brooklyn and Queens.
“Giving seniors the opportunity to
afford to live in their neighborhoods
creates inclusive communities and ad-dresses
our city’s affordability crisis,”
said John Kaiteris, executive director
of HANAC. “Astoria is in desperate
need of new affordable senior hous-ing
units. Councilman Constantinides’
proposal to build these new units in
an area near transit and local shop-ping
will improve quality of life for
our seniors.”
Photo courtesy of Councilman Costa Constantinides
