Local pols fume over Creedmoor redevelopment
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Local elected officials and community members are continuing to push against the state’s plans to redevelop more than 50 acres of land at Creedmoor in Eastern Queens. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The state’s plan to redevelop more than 50 acres of vacant land on the Eastern Queens Creedmoor campus drew the ire of several local elected officials last week.
State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, State Assembly Ed Braunstein and City Councilmember Linda Lee all strongly came out in opposition to Empire State Development's current master plan to redevelop the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center site in Queens.
The project, still several decades away from being reality, would bring around 2,000 units of housing, as well as commercial and community space to the usually quiet Eastern Queens area.
Since ESD's plan to redevelop the 59 acres of land formerly belonging to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center was launched in 2023, it was criticized by a coalition of community civic leaders, who said the project was too dense and would negatively impact their residential communities.
At the state’s first public hearing on the plan in several months, locals continued to blast the plan, joined this time by the three local electeds, who argued that the public input has gone in one of ESD’s ears and out the other.
“From day one, I have said that any proposed redevelopment of the Creedmoor site should be community driven and must reflect the vision and needs of the local community,” Braunstein said at the virtual meeting on Thursday night. “The community responded, attending meetings with questions, comments and concerns. However, as the process wore on and with the release of the master plan, it became clear that the community input was largely ignored.”
The current “master plan,” which the state published in December 2023, features plans to build a total of 2,873 new housing units, including supportive housing, senior housing, affordable housing and a list of homeownership options like co-ops and two-family homes.
Around 1,630 of the units would be available for individual purchase, and 1,240 would be rental units.
While Lee backed Braunstein’s comments at the meeting, Stavisky did not personally testify. However, Braunstein said that she would be submitting “very similar” written tesitmony.
Queens officials, including State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, State Assembly Ed Braunstein and City Councilmember Linda Lee, all oppose the current plan for Creedmoor’s redevelopment. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach
Community Board 13, which has come out against the redevelopment as it currently stands, has offered their own alternative plan, which would cut the number of units on the site in half and eliminate all of its supportive housing.
“One thousand units will provide the proper amount of density for this site in our Eastern Queens community,” said Corey Bearak, a representative from CB13.
Braunstein and the other officials and locals encouraged ESD to “go back to the drawing board” or consider CB13’s alternate plan.
“We believe there should be new housing at the site, we just believe that doubling the density of the surrounding community puts too much of a strain on the local infrastructure,” Braunstein said. “It's not enough to host feedback sessions – feedback must be actually realized. For these reasons, I do not support the plan in its current form.”
At the Thursday hearing, local civic leaders and neighbors reiterated their complaints with ESD's current draft.
“We're not being unreasonable,” said local Arlene Schlesinger. “The requests made by Community Board 13 are fair, balanced and reflect what this community actually needs. Yet Empire State Development has remained tone deaf to our concerns for a year and a half.”
The issues continue to center on the feeling that the development will create an undue infrastructure burden on the relatively secluded residential communities that surround Creedmoor.
“The ESD plan has about the same number of units on 59 acres more than double the density of nearby Glen Oaks Village,” said President of Glen Oaks Village and community leader Bob Freidrich.
Queens Borough Donovan Richards, who is helping to spearhead the redevelopment with ESD, continued to back the plan amid a housing crisis, calling it “community-informed.”
"Nearly 50 acres of land in Eastern Queens has sat desolate for decades, serving no purpose to our borough or our families, all while countless plans for the site have fallen through,” the BP said in a statement.
“However, my office's community-informed plan with Empire State Development to responsibly redevelop these vacant plots into badly needed housing, retail, community space and more is a solid one that we are proudly moving forward on,” he added. “In the midst of a generational housing crisis, we simply do not have time to return to the drawing board yet again at Creedmoor. I encourage all my colleagues to work alongside my office and ESD in order to help craft the best possible plan."
As has been the case with this project since it launched in 2023, there is a delegation of locals who are strongly in favor of the current plan, and how much needed affordable housing it will bring to the area.
“New York City and especially Queens County, is in a housing crisis, the crisis is real,” said Jeffrey Thompson, pastor of the Amity Baptist Church in Jamaica. “We face it every day, when we talk to our members, when we talk to their children and their grandchildren, when we talk to our congregations and our institutions, many of whom live in Queens Village, Bellerose and some of the surrounding communities, the number one issue facing them is affordable housing.”
Thursday’s hearing came after the compilation of a draft environmental impact study done on the project site, which churned up a few potential issues with the current plan.
The study found the project would have an impact on traffic, child care services and public libraries.
“The Proposed Project would result in significant adverse traffic impacts at 16 intersections during the weekday AM peak hour, six intersections during the weekday midday peak hour, 13 intersections during the weekday PM peak hour, and 11 intersections during the Saturday peak hour,” the report read.
The study included potential mitigation for those issues, including signal phasing and timing changes for the traffic problems the project may create.
Arguments over the project may last for a long time – the state isn’t expected to complete construction until 2040.
