Innovation QNS fight comes to City Hall

City Councilmember Julie Won leads a rally in opposition to Innovation QNS on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022.  Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye

By Jacob Kaye

The fight over Innovation QNS finally made its way to City Hall this week, as the City Council began mulling over whether it will approve or reject the largest proposed development in the history of Queens.

Nearly five years in the making, the controversial proposal to rezone five blocks in southeast Astoria – dubbed Innovation QNS – was presented to the City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises on Wednesday.

In a hearing that began an hour after its scheduled morning start time and lasted well into the evening, long-simmering tensions over the $2 billion development’s affordable housing numbers continued to cause clashes among the project’s supporters and opponents.

Tensions surrounding the project have boiled over between Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and City Councilmember Julie Won, who represents the area the project is proposed for and who will likely have the final say on whether or not the project moves forward.

Last week, the two clashed online. On Wednesday, they spoke at dueling rallies held on the steps of City Hall. Later during the hearing, they engaged in a tense exchange where both referred to private conversations they previously had about negotiations surrounding Innovation QNS.

However, even after it all, the pair agreed – the city needs more affordable housing.

“We will continue to push [for more affordable units in the development] and hopefully we can all celebrate in a few weeks from now,” Won said after Richards gave his testimony.

Richards responded: “I have the utmost confidence in you, and in the City Council, that we will arrive at a yes. Because Queens is not going to be the borough of truck depots.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards speaks in support of Innovation QNS during a rally on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye

Wednesday’s hearing echoed previous public forums on the project, which is unprecedented in scale in Queens. The lines in the sand dividing those in support and those against were drawn months before they arrived at City Hall.

The battle over Innovation QNS comes as the city continues to contend with rising rents, a rising population of homeless New Yorkers and an influx of asylum seekers, all of which have contributed to New York City’s long-standing housing crisis. It also comes as Mayor Eric Adams continues to push his “city of yes” policy, encouraging private development as a means to fix the housing crisis, and as a City Council packed with a number of young and new members seeks to define its approach to land use and housing in the five boroughs.

Innovation QNS is a 2.7 million-square-foot mixed-use development proposed for the area from 37th Street to Northern Boulevard, between 35th and 36th Avenues. If approved, it would see the creation of over a dozen new buildings, some as high as 27 stories, featuring around 2,800 new apartments, retail space, community facilities, two-acres of open space and a new movie theater.

In the nearly five years the project has been floating around the city’s consciousness, affordable housing has remained at the center of the discussion.

Under the current proposal, Innovation QNS’ developers, which include Silverstein Properties, BedRock and Kaufman Astoria Studios, would set aside around 1,100 of the project’s 2,800 apartment units for affordable, or income-restricted housing. Twenty-five percent of those affordable units would be privately financed and the remaining 15 percent would be paid for with city and state subsidies that have yet to be identified.

The offer has been rejected by Won, who has called for the developers to commit to setting aside 55 percent of the units at income-restricted rates, 40 percent of which would be privately financed and 15 percent of which would be paid for with city subsidies.

“Our community deserves better and the only way for us to fight back on the housing crisis is to build more affordable housing,” Won said at the rally on Wednesday. “Innovation QNS must be majority affordable at 55 percent, minimum. That is what we're here to fight for.”

Little of the developers’ proposal has changed over the past month beyond the expansion of the proposed affordable units – one notable change mentioned by the developers Wednesday is that they’ve no longer set aside privately financed senior housing units and are instead seeking to fund an unspecified number of senior units with public subsidies.

Wednesday’s hearing offered Won her first opportunity to publicly question the development team, which touted the project’s potential to nearly triple the number of income-restricted homes built in Community District 1 in the past eight years.

Should negotiations stall, it’s possible the City Council votes against approving the project. The Council has a long standing practice of deferring land use decisions to the local councilmember.

Won, and the approximately 100 Queens residents, housing rights and immigration advocates who rallied against the project on Wednesday, say that the developers’ desire to use government subsidies to fund 15 percent of the affordable units invites the possibility of them never being built. They also argue that the project, which would feature at least 1,700 market-rate units, would have a ripple effect on nearby low-income and working class residents, rising rents for surrounding apartments and inviting future land speculation.

“This is about who gets to live in Queens, who gets to live in New York City, and nobody is safe from displacement,” said Farihah Akhtar, an organizer with Asian American advocacy group CAAAV said. “This campaign against Innovation QNS is a watershed moment – it's where we decide whether or not you'll accelerate the gentrification of Queens and other working class places in New York City, or if we will have our people being the ones who live there.”

Nearly every elected official representing Astoria joined Won in opposition to Innovation QNS on Wednesday or has previously said that they don’t support the project. State Senator Michael Gianaris, Assemblymembers Zohran Mamdani and Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán and Rep. Nydia Velazquez, whose new district now includes a significant portion of Astoria, have all rejected the project as it currently stands.

“I am not against development – I am pro-sound and equitable development,” Velazquez said. “This is not a giveaway. We are giving them the right to build higher, more density at the expense of working people in this city? No, we are here to say, ‘no.’”

A number of Astoria lawmakers, including Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, have come out in opposition to Innovation QNS. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye

But just as the project has its opponents, it has its supporters.

In addition to Richards, Innovation QNS has gained the favor of Queens Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Grech and a number of labor unions, including 32BJ SEIU and Laborers Local 79. It also has the support of a number of Queensbridge Houses tenant and community leaders, including Bishop Mitchell G. Taylor, whose organization Urban Upbound has been promised space in the final development.

“Based upon the current situation in 2022, in our country, in our city, in our state, the fact that we're actually having a debate about this kind of private investment that's going to yield 1,100 low-income housing units is kind of beyond the pale,” Grech told the Eagle.

“I just think it's a really, really important thing to not only offer housing at a very, very critical time in our city's history – and also in the borough of Queens – but also, the jobs that are going to come with it for the construction, the post-construction, the ongoing opportunities and the amenities in the area just seems to be a win all around,” he added.

During his testimony, Richards slightly lifted back the curtain on his negotiations surrounding the project and attempted to explain how he went from opposing the project to fully supporting it. He said that though he initially asked that the City Council demand 50 percent affordability with an unspecified number of units set at 30 percent of the area median income, he was leaving room for the developers to increase their commitment and room for the City Council to negotiate further.

The borough president also appeared to criticize Won for upping her demand to 55 percent after previously calling for 50 percent affordable units.

“I worked extremely hard with Councilmember Won on my decision, and we arrived at the conclusion that we should push for 50 percent – there's a new number of 55 percent out there, but at the end of the day, as you know, sitting in your chair, everything is a negotiation.”

“To say no to Innovation QNS at this point – and I'm not saying that the Council should not negotiate more, because that’s within their role – but to say no to this scale and level of affordability that we have negotiated would be devastating and quite frankly irresponsible,” the borough president added. “The answer has to be to get to a yes.”

During his testimony, Richards claimed that Won had previously told him that she was satisfied with the developers offering 40 percent affordability – she later clarified that she meant 40 percent affordability fully funded by the developers and without city subsidies. In response, Won read a private message between her and Richards in which the borough president told her that she could “push them for 30 percent more units and probably secure more.”

Despite the tensions, the pair ended the exchange by complementing one another on their negotiating abilities.

“You have done an amazing job advocating,” Won said. “And I'm doing my job advocating.”

The Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and its Land Use Committee could potentially vote on Innovation QNS as soon as next week. The full Council will likely vote on the project the day the Land Use Committee votes on it.

Editors note: Innovation QNS is a unprecedentedly large project that has gone through several changes since first being proposed. There are many details of the project and of Wednesday’s hearing that were not included in this story. Do you have any Innovation QNS questions that you’d like to have answered? Email your questions to Jacob Kaye at jacobk@queenspublicmedia.com or reach out via Twitter at @Jacob_Kaye_. Your questions and their corresponding answers may be featured in a future story that will aim to breakdown the details of the project as they currently stand.