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Sept. 20-26, 2019 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
ALSO COVERING ELMHURST, JACKSON HEIGHTS, LONG ISLAND CITY, MASPETH, MIDDLE VILLAGE, REGO PARK, SUNNYSIDE
Locals reject Sunnyside Yards plan
Protesters rally against EDC vision for complex slated to offer affordability and amenities
BY MARK HALLUM
Protesters did not let Monday
night’s Sunnyside Yards hearing
commence without vocal opposition,
as groups expressed distrust toward
the Economic Development Corporation’s
plan to deck over 180 acres of
rail yard.
Among the loudest groups protesting
in the cafeteria of the Aviation
High School in Sunnyside were Queens
Neighborhoods United (QNU), who
brought their beef with the EDC back
to conflict of Amazon HQ2 which they
referred to as a backroom deal.
And while QNU and other organizations
were making a din in the
cafeteria, the teacher’s lounge saw
members of the public were asking
the planning consulting team leader
Vishaan Chakrabarti and the EDC’s
Adam Grossman Meager what would
happen to their community in terms
fabric and infrastructure.
“We really believe that if Queens
is going to maintain the diversity that
it has today … It’s going to need more
affordable homes. It’s going to need
more access to jobs. It’s going to need
better transportation, and more parks
schools and healthcare,” Chakrabarti
said. “The city, generally, we’re facing
a lot of long-term challenges in terms
of climate change, affordability, economic
opportunity. We just think it
would be foolish to not look at Sunnyside
Yards in light of the needs of what
both Queens has and the city has.”
While an earlier feasibility study
placed the Sunnyside Yards project
between $16 billion to $19 billion,
the new price tag is marked at
$22 billion, which critics say should
be spent on existing problems in
existing neighborhoods.
“Now is the time to speak out
against luxury development and hyper
gentrification in western Queens.
Mayor de Blasio and the EDC should
not be dumping billions into new luxury
developments while NYCHA needs
billions for critical maintenance and
repairs. We need good, truly affordable
housing for all and an end to homelessness.
Invest billions to solve these problems,
not hyper-gentrify our neighborhoods,”
said Patricia Chou, a Queens
Neighborhoods United organizer.
Along with the existing transit infrastructure,
Chakrabarti said the
deck would be equipped with roads
wide enough to handle bus service.
“Strained infrastructure, we know
that, we’ve heard that from a lot of
people, but none the less infrastructure
that can be improved upon,”
Chakrabarti continued. “The process
has really been driven, we feel, by the
public. We’ve had many, many meetings
and gotten a lot of input. Not just
input about specific aspects of the plan
but also what the identity of Queens is
and we want to be true to that identity
in the spirit of this place.”
On the western end of the site,
Chakrabarti said there is potential
for a long-awaited Sunnyside Station
on for LIRR riders, which has federal
funding, but has yet to be built
by the MTA.
According to Chakrabarti, western
Queens is starved of open space which
he believes decking over the yard
could provide parks for the public. The
overall heigh of the deck has been decreased
in its highest points, the equivalent
of five- to six-story buildings in
some places.
Whether or not Sunnysiders would
be cast beneath a constant shadow from
the deck and the buildings combined
was a concern which the EDC said it
had taken into account to prevent.
Garbage and other services would
be handled within the “thickness of the
structural deck,” Chakrabarti said.
A 45-year resident of Sunnyside
said her neighborhood is diminishing
without the development as it is and
posed the question to Meager of how it
is expected to effect communities.
“We would want this to be a world
where Sunnyside is still very much
Sunnyside, and strengthened by the
development,” Meager said.
The Sunnyside Yards project is expected
to cover a space seven times the
size as Hudson Yards, which has attracted
its share of criticism since its
completion such as the unaffordability
of the housing, the cost of the project
and the return on investment for
the city.
• ASTORIA TIMES
• FOREST HILLS LEDGER
• LAURELTON TIMES
• QUEENS VILLAGE TIMES
• RIDGEWOOD LEDGER
• HOWARD BEACH TIMES
• RICHMOND HILL TIMES
A hearing on the development of Sunnyside Yards projected a cost of $22 billion and left many residents with questions concerning
quality of life. Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
Vol. 7 No. 38 48 total pages
/QNS.COM
