City to explore building new precinct in Northeast Queens
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City Councilmember Vickie Paladino and Community Board 7 Vice Chair Charles Apelian (second from left) announced that the city has committed to exploring the possibility of bringing a new police precinct to Northeast Queens on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
City Hall has committed to exploring the possibility of bringing a new police precinct to Northeast Queens.
The news of the potential new NYPD precinct was revealed Wednesday night during a meeting held by Queens Community Board 7, which has long advocated for an additional precinct to free up resources in the 109th Precinct. The board pushed the Adams administration for its commitment to assessing the possibility of bringing a new precinct to the area as the city attempts to gain the board’s approval of its plans to redevelop Willets Point, a project that includes bringing the city’s first-ever stadium dedicated to soccer to what will soon be the former Iron Triangle.
The massive project at Willets Point includes the construction of 2,500 units of affordable housing, contributing to the rise in population seen throughout the current boundaries of the nearby 109th Precinct, the board argued. The current precinct covers the neighborhoods to the northeast of Willets Point, including Downtown Flushing, East Flushing, Queensboro Hill, College Point, Malba, Whitestone, Beechhurst and Bay Terrace.
In a letter to the board, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks said that he will “ensure that the relevant agencies conduct an assessment of the needs and resources required to determine whether a new precinct in the 109th Precinct is viable.”
“Although the city is facing unprecedented budget constraints, we are committed to working with NYPD, [the Department of Citywide Administrative Services] and [the Office of Management and Budget] to assess public safety needs and identify resources for an additional patrol precinct in the 109th Precinct,” the letter, which was obtained by the Eagle, reads.
City Hall did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment on Thursday.
There is no guarantee that a new precinct will be built in the area, and major obstacles stand in the way.
In addition to the city’s precarious financial situation, which the city has warned is not poised to get better any time soon, it’s rare for new precincts to be built in New York City.
Only two police precincts have been approved to be built in the five boroughs in the past three decades. One of those precincts, the soon-to-be-opened 116th Precinct serving the neighborhoods of Rosedale, Brookville, Laurelton and Springfield Gardens, was only approved after decades of advocacy and saw several false starts. The precinct, which cost the city $110 million, is expected to be fully operational in 2024.
In his letter to the community board, Banks said that the city “learned many lessons in the process of siting” the 116th Precinct that will translate over to its work of attempting to identify a new precinct within the 109th.
It’s unclear exactly where a new precinct will be located, should the city decide there is a need and they have the resources to build one.
Downtown Flushing is the most populous neighborhood in the 109th’s current boundaries, but it is also the neighborhood where the precinct is currently located. Officials on the board, including the board’s vice chairperson Charles Apelian, and City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, have argued that a greater police presence is needed in more far flung corners of the district, like College Point.
Speaking to the Eagle at Wednesday’s board meeting, Paladino said there’s a lot left to be determined, including the precinct’s location.
“That has not been decided yet,” the Republican councilmember said.
While Paladino said that the letter from Banks may not be the final step in seeing a new precinct in the district, it’s a major moment worth celebrating.
“It's a ray of sunshine that we have not seen,” Paladino said. “It's not a definite yes, but all the inquiries are being made.”
“It’s a green light, in a way,” she added. “I’ll take this, for now.”
The precinct was a major focus of Apelian’s and of Gene Kelty’s, who serves as the board’s chair.
“The package is just perfect,” Apelian said. “From Willets Point to the police precinct, it’s the perfect package.”
“We’ve only had one request through this whole process,” he added.
For Apelian, the city’s commitment to exploring the potential for a new precinct nearly caps off over a decade of work on the Willets Point project – which has not quite come to a close.
In a 10-1 vote on Wednesday night, the community board’s Land Use Committee approved plans for what’s known as phase two of the Willets Point redevelopment.
Phase two of the development, which was first announced by Adams last fall, will include 1,400 units of affordable housing, an 18-story hotel, several parking garages, over 75,000 square feet of retail space, a number of pedestrian plazas, open space and the 25,000-seat stadium, which is expected to open for its first match in 2027.
The second phase of the project largely builds off the first, which has already made its way through the ULURP process. Construction on phase one of the project, which includes 880 units of income restricted housing, 220 units of senior housing, a 25-space parking garage, over 22,000 square feet of retail space, around 5,000 square feet of community facilities and over 30,000 square feet of open space, is expected to begin in the coming weeks and be completed by 2026.
The current plans for development from the New York City Football Club, Queens Development Group and the New York City Economic Development Corporation mark the furthest the city has gotten toward actually building in Willets Point, an area that has been eyed for development by the past three mayoral administrations.
A century ago, Willets Point was the inspiration for a particularly desolate setting in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, “The Great Gatsby.” He called it the “Valley of Ashes,” named for the conditions created by the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company, which dumped heaps of ash onto the site until 1930, when the company was booted from the neighborhood to make way for the World’s Fair.
For a time it served as a city dump and later became home to scores of auto mechanic shops. Those shops populated the area when in 2008, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council officially marked Willets Point for redevelopment.
Two years prior, Apelian said the prospect of developing Willets Point first came before the board.
In the decade that followed, the project went through starts and stops and plans for the 60-acres known as the Iron Triangle went through a number of changes.
It wasn’t until the final years of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s second term in office that the current plan began to take shape.
De Blasio announced the details of phase one of the site in June 2021, and remediation began on the land shortly after – around that time, the city also agreed to lease the land, which is city owned, to Related Companies and Sterling Equities, the two development companies that comprise of Queens Development Group, for 99 years. The clean-up, which included excavating 100,000 tons of contaminated earth and replacing it with 80,000 tons of clean dirt, was completed earlier this year.
Adams first announced the soccer stadium deal, alongside City Councilmember Francisco Moya, in November 2022. Moya, an avid soccer fan, is perhaps the proposal’s biggest booster – he showed up to the board’s first committee meeting on the project wearing a denim jacket with the club’s logo printed on the back.
The proposal is expected to be approved by the community board on Monday, Dec. 4, when the entire board will vote on the project.
Apelian said that while there were countless headaches along the way, the final deal to develop at least part of Willets Point almost makes it all worth it.
“When you look at the final product, it's pretty exciting,” he said.
