4 THE QUEENS COURIER • NOVEMBER 21, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
City Council approves Edgemere Commons project
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Th e City Council gave the Edgemere
Commons mega-project in Far Rockaway
the green light on Nov. 14, which will bring
a record-breaking 2,050 units of mixed-income
Boro president candidates spar at forum
BY MAX PARROTT
mparrott@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Th e borough presidency may be considered
by some as an open-ended “cheerleader”
role, but the four Queens borough
president candidates stuck to a few consistent
themes during a recent Rockaway
candidate forum: transit, labor and their
relationship with community boards.
The Good Government, Regular
Democratic Club held the forum on Nov.
14 in Beacon Rehab & Nursing Center
in Rockaway Park, where Councilmen
Jimmy Van Bramer, Costa Constantinides
and Donovan Richards and former
Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley each
took turns giving the peninsula residents
their backstory and responding to concerns.
One might have expected Richards, the
Rockaway City Council representative,
to have the home court advantage in the
forum, but the timing of the event would
have it otherwise.
Earlier in the day, the City Council voted
in approval of the Edgemere Commons,
a transformative 11-building mixed-use
complex with over 2,000 units of belowmarket
rate housing in the heart of the
Rockaways — a project that the Rockaway
Community Board had voted against.
One member of Community Board 14
who was present at the forum took it as
an opportunity to test the candidates’ loyalty
to community boards across the borough,
asking each candidate to sign a
written pledge to back “any and all” community
board recommendations as borough
president.
In the course of addressing the crowd,
Crowley and Van Bramer signed the
pledge. And, based on a previous conversation
with Constantinides, the community
member took the liberty of signing
the pledge for Constantinides, who
arrived late. But once the councilman got
there, he made no objection.
Confronted with his recent friction with
the community board, Richards, on the
other hand, refused to sign and criticized
his opponents for doing so.
“It’s very important you look at the
record of individuals before they sign a
pledge like this. Th ere is no council member
who agrees with a community board
100 percent of the time,” said Richards. “At
the end of the day, we should be mature
enough to sit at a table and make plans
together.”
During the course of his speech,
Richards billed himself as a fi scal leader
and dealmaker with a history of bringing
economic development projects into his
district and access to the levers of power.
“Leadership is not about a popularity
contest … Leadership is about being able
to cultivate relationships because relationships
cultivate results and then leverage
the opportunities that come,” he said aft er
declaring his strong relationship with the
mayor and governor.
Richards also went on the off ensive
over Van Bramer’s stance on the Amazon
HQ2 deal. Aft er Van Bramer left the
forum, Richards called him out for signing
two letters of support for Amazon to
come into Long Island City before pushing
against the project.
In his speech, Van Bramer framed himself
as a union-raised dissident who has
used his position on the council to stand
up to those in power and fi ght for what he
believes is right.
“What happens when the mayor and
governor reach an agreement to the exclusion
of any CB involvement-bypassing
ULURP altogether? Bypassing all elected
offi cials together? … What I said is that it
is not going to happen,” said Van Bramer.
Like Van Bramer, Crowley touted her
union roots as a member of the D.C. 9
International Union of Painters and Allied
Trades from her previous career as a restorative
painter. She described the recurring
theme of her campaign as the fi ght for
Queens to receive its fair share of resources.
Constantinides highlighted his environmental
platform, explaining that his motivation
to run stems from being attuned to
the climate crisis.
“I don’t have to tell anyone on this peninsula
what Hurricane Sandy brought. I don’t
have to tell anyone here what climate change
is doing to our communities — what this
could potentially mean for us in the borough
of Queens,” Constantinides said.
In addition to their positions on the
community board, all of the candidates
said they would be open to exploring the
reactivation of a long-closed Rockaway
branch of the MTA. Even Crowley, who
has made the reopening of the Lower
Montauk Branch of the LIRR a pet project,
said that she thought the two projects
could work in concert together.
Aft er the meeting, Constantinides and
Van Bramer responded to QNS’s reporting
to clarify that they had not meant to
agree the exact wording of the pledge, but
that they had only meant to indicate their
willingness to consider community board
recommendations.
aff ordable housing, reactivate the site
of the former Peninsula Hospital and serve
as an anchor of economic growth in the
Rockaways.
Th e Edgemere neighborhood, an area
where the median family income is the lowest
on the peninsula, will benefi t from hundreds
of permanent and construction jobs
and the project is expected to bring in a new
supermarket, Western Beef, to the neighborhood,
according to the developer Arker
Companies.
“From the start, we wanted a project that
had the best interests of the community at
its heart. Edgemere Commons will not only
help to rebuild the Rockaway Peninsula, but
will also revitalize the neighborhood and
bring in a new era of economic growth,”
Arker Companies Principal Daniel Moritz
said. “We are pleased to have the support
of the City Council and Council member
Donovan Richards in particular, as we
begin construction on a plan that will reinvigorate
Edgemere and start a new chapter
in its history.”
Many community groups were in favor of
the development as it made its way through
the city’s public review process, including the
Rockaway Youth Task Force, which advocated
on behalf of the project before the community
board, borough president, and city
planning hearings. Th e group sent Richards
a letter urging him to vote yes and open the
doors of opportunity to the younger generation.
“For far too long we’ve seen opportunity
slip away in Edgemere. We’ve seen other
families move away because of a lack of
opportunities and we’ve lost many of our
friends as well,” the letter signed by 30 task
force members said. “When we talk with our
peers about plans for the future, we would
love to stay close to home, but Edgemere
doesn’t have the housing or opportunity for
us to stay. We want to change that, and we
want it to change quickly.”
City Council tradition is the vote of the
member who represents the area in question
will normally hold sway. Richards voted yes
and the council followed 47-0.
“Th is project will serve as a template
for what a resilient mixed-use development
should look like in the 21st Century,”
Richards said. “During a time when our city
is facing one of the largest housing crises we
have ever witnessed, this project will produce
over 2,000 units of true aff ordable housing. I
want to thank the Arker Companies for their
commitment to the Rockaway community
and I would also like to thank Community
Board 14, the Peninsula Hospital Task Force,
and all of the community stakeholders who
engaged in this project.”
Edgemere Commons will be built in fi ve
phases and construction is slated to begin in
2020. Th e development includes 11 buildings,
the creation of a new street network
and will dedicate 72,000 square feet to local
and national retailers, restaurants and coffee
shops.
Arker Companies says Edgemere
Commons is expected to spur economic
development, bringing in $1.486 billion
in growth and creating 300 to 350 annual
construction jobs as well as 650 permanent
jobs for locals in neighborhood retail, residential
operation and management, health
and community services. As part of Arker
Companies’ commitment to promote neighborhood
opportunity, they will launch a
$2 million Community Benefi ts and Youth
Development fund and build a community
center in the complex.
“Today, young people growing up on the
Rockaway Peninsula see a future where
opportunity and aff ordability are slipping
away,” Rockaway Youth Task Force Founder
and Executive Director Milan Taylor said.
“By bringing thousands of new aff ordable
apartments to the Rockaway Peninsula,
Edgemere Commons will spur economic
development so that the next generation of
our youth will have the opportunity to succeed
in our community.”
Th e project will feature innovative resiliency
and storm preparedness measures including
bioswales, bioretention rainwater system
solar panels, green and gray water infrastructure
and extended tree pits. Standby
generators will be included in all buildings
with emergency outlets in each unit.
Th e completion date for the Edgemere
Commons project is 2034.
Photo Courtesy of Arker Companies
The City Council approved the Edgemere
Commons megaproject reactivating the site
where Peninsula Hospital closed in 2011.
Photos: Max Parrott/QNS
Councilman Donovan Richards addresses his constituents at the Nov. 14 borough president forum
in Rockaway Park.
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