Innovation QNS commits to lowering affordable units’ rent
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The developers behind Innovation QNS committed in writing to the borough president that they’d make a number of the project’s units rent for 30 percent of area median income, a 10 percent drop in what was previously promised. Rendering via Innovation QNS
By Jacob Kaye
The developers behind Innovation QNS, the largest development proposed in Queens in at least a decade, committed in writing to making a number of their affordable units rent at 30 percent of the area median income, according to a source in the Queens borough president’s office.
Silverstein Properties, BedRock and Kaufman Astoria Studios, the developers behind the controversial five-block development planned for southeast Astoria, told Queens Borough President Donovan Richards in writing that they’d make an unspecified number of units rent for 30 percent of the area median income – about $28,000 for a single person and around $40,000 for a family of four – in an effort to expand the project’s affordability.
Prior to the commitment, the lowest AMI the developers had committed to was 40 percent.
Richards is also facilitating a conversation between the developers and the city to look for additional city-backed programs that could offset the cost of making more units affordable, the source said.
The project is making its way through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, known as ULURP, and is currently at the second stage of the process – the borough president’s review. Negotiations are ongoing, according to a source in Richards’ office. The project was rejected by the local community board during a heated hearing last month.
“Borough President Richards has demonstrated the ability to shape development projects so that they are compatible with their neighborhoods,” an Innovation QNS spokesperson told the Eagle. “We are pleased to be able to continue to work with the borough president to refine the plan for Innovation QNS by agreeing to include affordable housing with units as low as 30 percent of AMI.”
The spokesperson declined to give numbers concerning the amount of units that would rent for 30 percent of AMI.
Affordable housing is at the center of the project’s controversy.
Critics of the project – including Queens Community Board 1 – say that the five-block development from 37th Street to Northern Boulevard between 35th and 36th Avenues wouldn’t align with the current makeup of the neighborhood and that the affordable units proposed are both too scarce and too expensive for residents already living nearby.
Project plans call for over a dozen new buildings in the area, some of which would top 20 stories. Ground level floors throughout the development will be occupied by retail, community space and offices. Above those spaces would sit over 2,800 apartments, 700 of which would be deemed affordable or designated for senior housing.
The developers are operating under option one of the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, which mandates that they set aside 25 percent of the units for people earning an average of 60 percent of AMI, or around about $56,000 for a single person and $80,000 for a family of four. They’ve also committed to making around 540 of those units rent under $1,675 per month, and 300 rent for below $1,000.
In addition to the full community board’s rejection of the project, the board’s Land Use Committee also voted down the project over affordability concerns, which have been echoed by a growing number of community advocates testifying at a number of public hearings concerning Innovation QNS.
Brian Romero, the Community Board 1 member who initiated the “no” vote against the project in June, told the Eagle he felt the developers didn’t cede enough ground to the board’s requests throughout its years-long negotiation process and didn’t trust the commitment made to the BP.
“I think it's more words, frankly,” Romero said. “The community has been organizing for real action, so, I would just encourage all the stakeholders, as much my councilmember [Julie Won] and our board president to not be swayed so easily.”
The borough president is required by law to issue his advisory decision on the project before the end of the month.
Following Richards’s decision, the developers will then take their pitch to the City Planning Commission, which will have 60 days to hold a public hearing and issue a vote on the application.
At that point, it will move to the City Council and the mayor for a vote.
Won has been critical of the project, though she’s almost exclusively taken issue with what she says was a lack of outreach to nearby residents about the development. She has yet to comment publicly about the merits of the project.
Her predecessor in the council, Jimmy Van Bramer, called the project “wildly out of character to the surrounding neighborhood” not long after it was first introduced.
Regardless of where Won lands, her opinion will likely have outsized influence on the vote of her colleagues. Though it was challenged last year, councilmember deference has historically been respected in the legislative body.
