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What an embrace of Long Island City! The city announced that it will buy waterfront property in Long Island City to build up to 5,000 units of affordable housing for families. The city is paying the Port Authority a total of $146 million for the 24 acres - $100 million for the property and $46 million for "remaining obligations" to the site. From the press relase:
Mayor Bloomberg: "Middle-income families are facing housing affordability challenges as a result of New York's success, and we have to make strategic, long-term investments to ensure that New Yorkers of all incomes can work and live in our City. This development will build on New York's grand tradition of major middle-income communities, but updated for the 21st century. We will work quickly to turn this into homes for thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and other moderate- and middle-income New Yorkers. I want to thank the Port Authority for its continued collaboration and support."The city will also look to purchase abjacent privately owned land to develop another 1,500 units. Newsday notes Queens West is right near Silvercup Studios and finds support from the locals:...The City plans to develop a new site plan for the undeveloped southern portion of Queens West to allow for construction of a middle-income, mixed-use community including up to 5,000 residential units targeted to families earning between $60,000 and $145,000 for a family of four. The plan will also generate vibrant retail amenities, while maintaining the existing commitments to public open space and waterfront access.
Joseph Conley, the chairman of Community Board 2, said local leaders asked the mayor several years ago to step in before the area became a "luxury ghetto" with exclusive apartments where average people were priced out.The Post calls it Stuy Town East, and in fact, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff said the new plan would be "a great middle-income community in the spirit of Stuyvesant Town and others." And since this area was where the city proposed much of the Olympic Village in its 2012 Olympic bid, the concept of a 2016 bid was raised and quickly shot down, with Bloomberg saying, "I think it's safe to say the city does not have the resources or the combination of things you would need to pursue a bid for 2016." Yeah, leave that to Chicago."We have the million-dollar views of Manhattan on the Queens side but, unfortunately, it was going to cost you a million dollars to move into Queens West," Conley said.
The city will look for developers next year and construction may begin in 2008. We imagine subway service to the area will get better by then.
Rendering of Morphosis's plan for a 2012 Olympic Village in Long Island City
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Let's hope it looks nothing like the Olympic village plans. God, that's so ugly and anti-urban.
Bull-it!
This is not middle income, this is 60K to 120K income housing Upper Middle Class...what is needed is 30K to 70K housing. This will not even replace the existing affordable housing lost every year in the city.
Here is a quote from this morning's Times.
"A study in May by the Community Service Society found that between 1990 and 2005, nearly a quarter of the roughly 121,000 apartments built under federal and state subsidy programs dating from the 1960’s and 70’s left those programs. This year alone, by the authors’ count, New York City will lose more than 5,000 apartments for low- and middle-income families.
“This is a blind spot on the part of the mayor and the administration,” Mr. McKee said. “They are stubbornly refusing to recognize that they are taking one step forward, three steps back.”
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat who heads a committee of the State Legislature that oversees public authorities, also questioned whether the deal would make efficient use of the Port Authority’s land.
He said the sale price of about $29 a square foot was “infinitely less than what the market would bear.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/nyregion/20queens.html?ref=nyregion
Oh for F sake, you guys are out of your damned minds. Do you really think there's gonna be a bunch of low-income family-friendly housing on waterfront property with a view of the skyline?
And even if it does start out that way, how long before Grandma Sandra starts passing the apartment along to her third great grandkid who will still be paying next to nothing for it even though she makes $300,000 at an ad agency?
It ain't happening, folks.
Hey I have a great idea! Lets Put a pretty park on top of a superfund site and then market it to poor people!
"we imagine subway service to the area will get better by then"
i have said it before and will say it again ... long island city has the best subway service in the city. this is not a qualitative claim. the 7 train comes every 2 minutes and 30 seconds during rush hour. and yes, it really does come. that and every other single train lands at queens and queensborough plaza. why does gothamist continute to perpetuate a myth that just because a neighborhood is in queens it's a land far, far away and oh-so-hard to get to?
long island city is a subway stop away. yes, it really is.
I'm sick of the bs about how underpaid the cops are. The only underpaid cops are the rookies and that's because the union made a deal to raise the salaries of the guys already on the force at the expense of guys who hadn't joined yet. Of course it passed a vote because the newvies hadn't been hired yet! And since the cops don't have the residency requirement they aren't going to choose a cramped apartment in LIC over a house if they have a family.
Isn't that Newtown Creek in the architects rendering? Also known as [via Wikipedia] "one of the most polluted waterways in North America." and basically the drain pipe into the East River for "Americas largest underground oil spill" which has rendered the entire Brooklyn aquifer unusueable for drinking water. Sure has a nice view though. Hah.
Watch- Newtown creek will be the best location to live in around LIC...minus the methane.
yes the new cops got screwed over by the older cops. their own union screwed them over. but the new cops are still underpaid. extremely underpaid. (and they still chose to be cops.)
even if they hadn't gotten screwed over by their union, new cops would still be moderate income new yorkers. teachers, firefighters, cops, serve specific communities.
cops don't have a residency requirement but don't assume that just because they have a family they wouldn't want to live in the city they work in, or in many cases, grew up in. as you pointed out, many people wouldn't chose a "cramped" apt to raise a family when LI beckons. but an affordable, nice apt in LIC with the state park nearby and a zero-minute commute would be appealing to many, many cops with families.
please, enough with the cops already. most make great salaries (ridiculous when overtime is included), get pensions, etc. Not to mention they all choose to that job, no one forces them... they don't need housing handouts.
"Stuy Town East"? Seriously?
We all know how that turned out.
By the time of this is fininshed construction, since inflation is taking off, 60k for a family is merely middle class income.