“It should be abundantly clear that the stamp of a landmark designation alone does not keep a building standing. If financial viability and structural integrity are in question, landmarking should be postponed, until a game plan for rehabilitation is fleshed out.”
The question soon facing the City Council—and in particular, local member Julie Won—is how much affordable housing is enough to replace the Queens industrial scene with a complex three times bigger than One45, another Harlem development proposal recently squashed over affordability concerns.
“Of all the challenges a child experiencing homelessness may be faced with, a basic lack of supplies to complete schoolwork should not be one of them, especially since education can be a critical tool to breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.”
“Public land is a treasure that we need to maximize for truly affordable housing,” said Councilmember Lincoln Restler, whose new bill would preventing the city from selling off land to private, for-profit developers unless no qualified nonprofit group makes an offer.
“As of 2016, the city had over 1,131 (more or less) parcels of property at its disposal. Instead of using executive orders on projects that benefit a small group of people, the mayor has the power to relinquish parcels of land and abandoned property to address homelessness.”
Queens had the fewest number of cooling centers based on population density with only five for every 100,000 people, while Manhattan had seven, an analysis by City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office found. East Flatbush was the neighborhood with the worst access to cooling centers based on vulnerability.
The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) took over as the main city agency handling street vendor enforcement last June. But the NYPD remains active in enforcement, too. Together, the agencies issued 2,427 tickets to vendors during the year ending in May, a 33 percent increase compared to 2019, when police alone issued 1,609 tickets.
The declaration will allow the city to open a new intake facility specifically for asylum-seekers and immigrants who have made their way to city shelters. It will also allow the Department of Homeless Services to issue contracts to nonprofits to open additional shelters, most likely in hotels, while bypassing public review and the usual competitive bidding process.
Just six units remain occupied at the Arlington Village complex. Now, those who remain worry about what the owners’ plan to develop the site will mean for them. “What exists now won’t exist.”
Councilmember Julie Won issued a list of “land use principles” she said she will apply to new projects in her district that require Council-approved changes to the city’s zoning code—including a controversial proposal to build a 3,000-unit complex in southern Astoria.
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