Massive Long Island City rezoning begins
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Officials laid out plans for the ONE LIC redevelopment project last week, and community members weighed in on the potential plans. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Last week, City Councilmember Julie Won, urban designers and city agencies laid out their broad plan for the ONE LIC project, a new attempt at redeveloping a large swatch of the Long Island City area.
At the kickoff event held at Culture Lab LIC, locals and stakeholders gave feedback on several aspects of the proposal, including what they want to see in housing and waterfront access. Despite a general hopeful attitude toward the broad and long-term project, some community members say they have been here before and were let down by the results.
The ONE LIC initiative, announced in mid-October by Won, takes a large portion of Long Island City and opens it up to community planning and rezoning with the hopes of increasing housing, public spaces, waterfront access, transportation improvements and more. It also aims to address years of inequity that have occurred in what has been one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in New York City in the past decade.
The feedback session held last week was the beginning of what is expected to be a multi-year process.
“I want to hear it all, [City Planning] wants to hear it all, from flooding, from our overcrowded schools, need for middle school seats, need for Pre-K seats,” Won said. “We want to hear from you about resiliency, flood risks, everything that you can think of, affordability, housing, public spaces, community spaces, art spaces.”
“This is just the beginning,” she added later.
The lawmaker, who was re-elected by a large margin the day following the planning kickoff event, is partnering with the Department of City Planning, as well as WxY, an architecture and urban design firm who are consulting on the project.
“ONE LIC is a holistic community planning process to gain input and build consensus on key neighborhood challenges and opportunities towards the development of a Long Island City neighborhood plan,” said Bahij Chancey, the director of planning at WxY. “We are trying to do things differently.”
Chancey outlined the goals and plans for the intuitive, which hopes to attack certain shortcomings in the area as of present.
“Some of those challenges include the tremendous growth that has put demand on neighborhood services like schools, sanitation and sewer infrastructure,” said Chancey. “There is a lack of open space and waterfront access for people to relax, play and gather. There is a persistent need for affordable housing. Local businesses are outgrowing their shells, and there's unique opportunities here to ensure equitable job growth and connect more residents to local jobs.”
Councilememeber Julie Won is spearheading ONE LIC, which she announced in mid-October. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
Down this road before
It is no secret that Long Island City has been here before.
From the once planned Amazon HQ to Your LIC, there have been other public and private efforts to redevelop Long Island City, all of which were either challenged by community members or never materialized.
“It's no secret there have been a lot of development proposals for this area,” said Chancey. “There has been proposal after proposal for what to do and developers are still at this time going a lot by a lot to try to pass private rezoning applications.”
Many of these earlier attempts are already being included in ONE LIC’s conversations, with aspects of those proposals being included as a jumping off point for community input.
“I know that we're not starting from scratch,” said Won. “We have seen this process come and go, and we have had many other projects here.”
However, for some community members, the previous attempts have jaded them toward another long development process.
“I am a little bit cynical because this may be the 10th time I've gone through something like this in a decade,” said Community Board 1 Chair Danielle Brecker. “I've sat in a room and I've written things on post-it notes many, many times now, and it's completely ignored, and the governor is going to give $3 billion to Amazon, it just goes nowhere. We’ve never had an outcome.”
Although she says she is trepedatious, Brecker also says she is hopeful, and that Won has “the best intentions.”
“She knows the frustrations we've had with Amazon, with Your LIC, all of it,” Brecker said. “So, I think that makes me feel hopeful.”
Brecker told the Eagle that there is a grocery list of improvements she would like to see made in the neighborhood, from a lack of affordable housing, to climate change resiliency, to a hospital with a maternal and women’s care unit.
“I don't want to just rezone something and then have developers do whatever they want – there needs to be a plan,” she said.
What the community wants
Brecker isn't the only one with ideas.
The “open forum” section of the event split the potential plans into five specific focus areas: Economic Development, Arts and Culture, Transportation, Waterfront resilience and open space and housing.
Community members could weigh in at the various tables through post-it notes, and colorful stickers meant to express their agreement with certain ideas.
Based on the post-its and stickers, housing seemed to be at the top of attendees’ priority lists. In particular, they called for affordable housing as other parts of Long Island City have been developed with mostly luxury apartment buildings.
At the table specifically for housing ideas, one attendee wrote “BUILD MORE,” and that post-it was covered in stickers in support, more than any other.
Randy Elemel, a local small business owner, concurred with that idea.
“It’s a little bit concerning, the problems we are dealing with,” he said.
Elemel said that although his family is comfortable financially, they have been displaced from homes twice due to increasing rent, and still see their housing situation as “contingent.”
Community members weighed in on potential plans for ONE LIC using post-it notes and stickers. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
“If we feel contingent, then there’s a lot of people who feel that,” he said.
Other widely repeated ideas included better access to the East River, new sewer systems, more public spaces and more opportunities for small businesses.
“If there is more competition, maybe they can adjust the prices,” said new LIC resident Joji Nidea.
LIC won’t be built in a day
The process of rezoning and redeveloping Long Island City will not be a quick process.
The preliminary schedule outlined by officials has the certification of a full plan, even before construction, coming in March 2025.
Before then however, developers and officials will hold three broad town halls, one in early 2023 and another for spring 2024. Also, there will be specific “focus area meetings” to address specific aspects of the plan, which are split into three categories.
If all goes by the preliminary plan, a draft plan for the rezoning should be complete by February 2025, a little over 14 months from now.
