Creedmoor development behind schedule
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Creedmoor psychiatric facility, a notorious building that will stay up alongside the new development. Eagle Photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The state’s effort to develop the site of the former Creedmoor Psychiatric Center campus is now behind schedule.
The state’s Empire State Development Corporation, which is leading the redevelopment of 54 acres of the 125-acre campus alongside Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, was scheduled to release the first draft of its plans for the area and host two public forums on those plans later this month. However, the forums and the release of the draft masterplan have now been pushed back to the fall, the ESD told the Eagle.
“In the coming months, ESD will finalize the draft masterplan and expect the next round of meetings in fall 2023,” said an ESD spokesperson. “ESD will continue working with the community to incorporate their collective vision into the Creedmoor masterplan.”
The spokesperson said that the initial proposed timeline, which included two public forums in July, was “always a best case scenario” and blamed the delay on ESD’s desire to “give ample consideration to the stakeholder feedback we’ve received.”
The redevelopment of Creedmoor, which is located off the Grand Central Parkway in Queens Village, was never expected to come easy or quickly.
Empire State Development and Richards together announced in February there would be a series of community visioning sessions to get input on what to do with the site which once belonged entirely to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, which treated mental health patients in Queens for most of the 20th century but closed around 50 years ago – a part of the campus remains in use for treating patients.
During the several in person and virtual feedback sessions, locals suggested everything from park space, to schools to affordable and senior housing.
“When we started this process, I was very clear with ESD that we wanted to ensure that the community's voice and community input was number one,” Richards told the Eagle over the phone on Friday. “I want to ensure that the community's voice is heard.”
Recently, the borough president’s office held a roundtable discussion with ESD and community stakeholders, who were told that the release of the plans would have to wait another few months. The borough president said he wasn’t particularly concerned about the delay.
“Quite frankly, I would rather lose a month or two and be behind then for this process to fail,” he said. “I am exactly where I want to be.”
“Now of course, I wanted shovels in the ground yesterday but I will always say that,” he added.
For some of Creedmoor’s neighbors concerned about what may be built on the site, the brief delay hasn’t worried them.
“There isn’t a lot going on,” said Rocky Hill Civic Association President Suzanne Peritz, who is part of a coalition of local leaders who have participated in the visioning sessions for the site.
Peritz said that she believes no decisions have been made about what types of facilities the former psychiatric campus may host and that plans currently remain “up in the air.”
The coalition, made up of leaders from some of the surrounding communities which are chiefly made up of single family home owners, have loudly stated they don’t want large-scale housing built at the site.
“We don’t mind if it stays empty,” Peritz said.
However, their position puts them at odds with local and state leaders, as well as housing advocates also involved in the public feedback sessions, who have expressed concern over the city’s housing crisis and see Creedmoor as a fitting opportunity to build hundreds, if not thousands, of units of housing.
“We were not doing NIMBYism,” Richards said. “You could go ahead and protest, but we're going to do some [housing density].”
The borough president also suggested that there will likely be a compromise in the final plans.
“There will be density at the site, and we will try to arrive at an educated place once we have more information,” he added.
But with rising rates of homelessness and the ongoing migrant crisis, Richards said that bringing housing to Creedmoor is an imperative part of the plan.
An overhead few of the large plot of land where new development is expected to come. Empire State Development
“We really don't have the time to wait,” he said. “We try to make a plan as perfect as we can, but the people of Queens County, who elected me, elected me to be able to work with the community but to also make hard decisions.”
Richards also added that he believes ESD has been sensitive to the concerns of locals and have agreed to ax any plans to build homeless shelters or juvenile correctional facilities on the Creedmoor campus.
“As I said to the community, this is a marriage, and there's no such thing as a perfect marriage,” Richards said. “There are going to be disagreements on different facets of the plan.”
“I look forward to continuing to work with the community to hear them out, continuing to work with ESD and to sort of be that referee, and reconciling those differences without sacrificing our values as well,” he added.
