6
QUEENS WEEKLY, OCTOBER 27, 2019
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-of-right 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.
Seonae Byeon (l.) and Tarry Hum.
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