Community News
‘Queens is Not for Sale’
22 DECEMBER 2019 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
Angélica Acevedo
Community activists protest
EDC’s plan to develop
Sunnyside Yards
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Justice for All Coalition, Stop Sunnyside
Yards, Woodside on the Move, Take Back
NYC and several other community activists
and leaders rallied on Nov. 25 on Skillman
Avenue to demand that all public officials and city
agencies — particularly the New York City Economic
Development Corporation (EDC) and the Department
of City Planning (DCP) — stop all plans to develop
Sunnyside Yards.
“Anyone who pitches to you the idea of building
a giant steel deck on top of this historic rail yard and
then building on top of that deck an emerald city for
the rich while the other 99 percent of the people in
our community have their needs unmet, is pitching to
you a short-term solution with huge long-term costs,”
Nicholas Velkov, executive committee member of
Justice for All Coalition, small business owner and
Astoria resident, said at the rally.
Velkov and Ivan Contreras, the lead tenant orga-nizer
at Woodside on the Move, directed the rally and
press conference, which took place right in front of
the 180-acre rail yard.
The land, which is about six times the size of Man-hattan’s
Hudson Yards, is owned by Amtrak and the
MTA and is considered one of the busiest rail yards
in the country.
Amtrak and the MTA are undertaking “critical capital
investments” that only happens once in a century,
according to the EDC.
Therefore, Sunnyside Yards has been eyed for a
long-term, billion dollar development project by the
EDC since 2017, after they found that it’s possible
to create new land in the form of a deck over the yard
with continued rail operations below.
At Monday’s rally, the speakers presented
their petition that was signed by 43 organi-zations
and small business owners across the
boroughs, and not only called for a moratorium
Nicholas Velkov of Justice for All Coalition lead the Sunnyside Yards protest on Nov. 25.
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