Please listen to our discussion and learn about what's happening at Sunnyside Yards since NYCEDC unveiled their Master Plan in March 2020. WBAI's Michael G. Haskins (Producer Jillian Jonas) discusses Sunnyside Yards with Emily Sharpe, attorney (CUNY School of Law) and founder of Stop Sunnyside Yards, and Dannelly Rodriguez, law student (CUNY School of Law) and organizer with Queens DSA & Justice for All Coalition in the segment "Sunnyside Yards_Think Hudson Yards on Steroids".    https://archive.org/details/sunnyside-yards-8-19-20

"WESTERN QUEENS" a SHORT FILM

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/realestate/the-people-vs-big-development.html

Article by Stefanos Chen, photo by Stefano Ukmar for The New York Times

Published Feb. 7, 2020 Updated Feb. 10, 2020

Bushwick. Inwood. Two Bridges.

They are invoked by protesters across New York City, regarded as the front lines in a battle against what some communities see as misguided plans to create more housing.

In recent months, the three neighborhoods have thwarted or stalled both private and public efforts to develop thousands of new apartments, the majority of which would be too expensive for local residents, and have energized like-minded campaigns all over the city.

The resistance might not have mattered a few years ago, when the real estate industry was flying high with ambitious luxury projects and tacit support from elected officials. Now, with a glut of empty luxury apartments and the industry’s waning influence in Albany, momentum is building for neighborhood groups that are pushing back against new building projects because they believe such plans offer little community benefit. And they’re winning.

Tall towers that critics say exceed height limits are being held up in litigation. Zoning loopholes that enabled skyscrapers on mid-rise blocks are being scrutinized, and could even result in the shortening of some towers. And in neighborhood rezoning battles, mostly in lower-income communities of color, opponents are fighting efforts to spur new and largely market-rate construction that they say would displace longtime residents.

After a decade of seemingly endless construction of high-end condos and rentals, neighborhood groups that have long pushed for more affordable housing are finally being heard. And these aren’t merely symbolic victories, the groups say, but decisions that could change what gets built in the city, and how, for years to come.

Battle Lines Drawn

Community groups are opposing both private and public redevelopment projects across the city that they say will spur displacement, among other concerns.

Amid the blowback against new development, the need for housing remains dire. New York City built only 163,000 units of housing in the 2010s, fewer than the 205,000 created in the 1930s, during and after the Great Depression, according to a city report. From 2009 to 2018, the New York metro region added 0.5 units of housing for every new job, down from 2.2 units per job in the previous decade.

But opponents say that simply building new housing, even with a mandatory share of below-market-rate units, will not stem the continued loss of affordable housing for average New Yorkers.

A Model in Inwood

In December, a New York Supreme Court judge annulled the city’s rezoning plan for Inwood, a low- and middle-income neighborhood in Upper Manhattan with some of the lowest rents in the city.

“The Inwood victory was like, whoa, the tide is turning,” said Alicia Boyd, a retired teacher in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who leads the local activist group Movement to Protect the People. The organization is opposed to several new towers in the area, on the grounds that the resulting apartments would be too expensive for locals and cast shadows on the nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The decision in Inwood has given the group hope for a similar outcome.

The Inwood plan would have increased the allowable height and density in parts of the neighborhood, which could have brought 3,900 new units to the area, including 1,600 below-market apartments, according to the Department of City Planning. The city is appealing the decision.

The judge agreed that the city’s environmental review process, which aims to measure the impact of development, did not adequately study a number of concerns, including the risk of racial displacement and the effect of speculative development on local businesses, many of which can be more valuable to landlords as land sales.

Since 2013, when the rezoning plan was first announced, investors bought more than $610 million in properties, according to a New York Times analysis.

“They don’t have to study the racial impact? That’s ridiculous,” said Michael Sussman, the petitioners’ attorney, who argued that speculation would have an outsize impact on minority residents in the area, many of whom live in rent-regulated apartments.

The coalition included a cross-section of the neighborhood: a climate scientist, engineers, academics, a Chinese takeout restaurant owner, an auto repair shop owner and a pharmacist.

“It sounds like the nerds were the ones to make it happen, but that’s not true,” said Paul Epstein, a retired management consultant and one of the leaders of the coalition. “This suit had 15 petitioners, which helped show the judge we’re not a couple of angry people — this is a whole community.”

Jon Yeung, an owner of U Like Chinese Takeout, who immigrated as a child from Fuzhou, China, said this was the first time his family had gotten involved in local politics, after more than 20 years working in Inwood. “I’m just afraid that when the lease is up, then things will be different,” he said. Around 2003, he said the monthly rent on the restaurant’s other location tripled, from $3,000 to $9,000, forcing the owners to shut it down.

Karla Fisk, a member of the group Inwood Legal Action and a green-building consultant, noted that the bulk of the new construction would be luxury apartments and that most of the below-market units created by the city’s plan would still be too expensive for longtime residents. The median household income in the neighborhood is about $51,000, compared with almost $80,000 across Manhattan, according to census figures.

Similar legal strategies are working in Crown Heights, where Ms. Boyd and other petitioners recently won a temporary restraining order that has effectively blocked construction of two projects near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, on the basis that the Department of City Planning should have conducted a more thorough review of the buildings’ impact.

Carmel Partners, the developer of one of the projects, said its 16- and 17-story buildings would have “over 140 affordable units.” The developer would not say how many market-rate units would be built.

“People are no longer accepting the idea that this is going to solve the housing crisis,” Ms. Boyd said of the planned affordable units, which she said would be out of reach for current renters, who have a median household income of about $56,000 a year— a number that already reflects the recent influx of more affluent renters.

Stalemate in Bushwick

In January, years of efforts by community groups in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood and city planning officials to address housing needs unraveled, after the local city councilman rejected the city’s rezoning plan.

The city’s proposal could have added about 5,600 apartments to the neighborhood, of which 1,680 would be reserved as below-market-rate units. But community groups balked at the proposal, which they say ignored a community-led plan that would have created about 2,000 new units, with a more balanced ratio of market-rate to affordable units.

Critics point to the troubling outcomes of past rezonings. Greenpoint and Williamsburg, two Brooklyn neighborhoods rezoned to allow more building in the mid-2000s, lost about 15,000 Hispanic residents between 2000 and 2015, while the overall population rose 20,000 in the same period, according to a census analysis by Churches United for Fair Housing, a nonprofit community services group.

Williamsburg and Greenpoint also had the highest median rent increase of the decade, from $1,207 in 2010 to $1,854 in 2018, a 54 percent jump, according to the N.Y.U. Furman Center.

Alexandra Fennell, the network director at Churches United for Fair Housing, said that Mayor de Blasio’s proposed rezoning efforts would repeat some of the same mistakes, in that most of the targeted areas are low-income neighborhoods of color.

“Why hasn’t the city done this in white communities?” she asked, citing a recent city proposal  for the affluent neighborhoods of NoHo and SoHo in Manhattan that emphasizes new retail, not housing.

That idea has the backing of Open New York, a pro-housing group that has proposed adding about 3,400 new units to SoHo and NoHo, about 700 of which would be affordable — available to a family of three making about $38,000 a year, for instance. “If there is any place that should allow more density, it’s SoHo,” said Will Thomas, a member of the group.

Vicki Been, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said “everything is on the table” when it comes to the possibility of adding residential density to SoHo. But she said that the focus of the mayor’s rezoning efforts has been in lower-income neighborhoods like Bushwick because they are transit-rich and have the capacity to create and preserve the most affordable housing. Denser and more affluent areas, like the Upper East Side, have far less opportunity for growth, she said.

“The notion that we can freeze a moment in time is a fallacy,” Ms. Been said, adding that the affordable units that would be created by the city’s proposed rezoning efforts, including those out of reach for some local residents, would still be a relief to middle-income New Yorkers.

But the prospect of no zoning change for Bushwick is also concerning, said Chris Walters, a land-use expert with the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, which supports the community-led plan. Developers can currently build about 6,000 new units there as of right, without seeking special permission, with little to no below-market-rate mandate. The median annual household income in Bushwick was $53,360 in 2018, compared with $63,799 citywide, according to census figures, and almost a third of households spent more than half their income on rent.

Tower Scrutiny

In prime Manhattan markets, where residents are weary from years of luxury development, community groups are pushing back against towers that they believe have abused zoning loopholes.

At 200 Amsterdam, on the Upper West Side, community members won a significant victory last March, when a State Supreme Court judge called into question the legality of the 668-foot tower’s zoning lot. Developers often purchase the unused development rights of adjacent buildings to add height and bulk to their buildings. In this case, the opponents argued that the developers, Mitsui Fudosan America and SJP Properties, created a “gerrymandered” 39-sided zoning lot to take advantage of the development rights from a number of tenuously adjacent lots. The building is over twice the height of nearby towers, and the tallest north of 61st Street.

“If everyone can put together 39-sided zoning lots, then chaos is going to ensue,” said Elizabeth Goldstein, the president of the Municipal Art Society of New York, which is involved in the suit.

The litigation is ongoing, but under the most severe and unusual penalty, the developers could be forced to remove several floors from the top of the partially finished tower, where the priciest penthouse is listed for $21 million. SJP, one of the developers, said they were in accordance with the zoning, and that they expected “to start delivering residences soon.”

A few blocks away, at 50 West 66th Street, a would-be 775-foot tower remains unbuilt, held up by challenges from community groups that argue the developer created excessively tall mechanical rooms to add height — nearly 200 additional feet — to create a premium for its condo units on higher floors.

“We’re literally at the behest of developers’ whim,” said Sean Khorsandi, the executive director of Landmark West, a preservationist group, which narrowly lost a split decision at the Board of Standards and Appeals in January to revoke permits for the project. The group is exploring further legal challenges, he said.

Even so, the City Council passed a zoning amendment in May to effectively limit mechanical rooms to 25 feet high, making it harder for other developers to use the strategy. The developer of 50 West 66th Street, Extell, declined to comment.

A Legal Precedent

In Two Bridges, a mostly low-income immigrant community south of Manhattan’s Chinatown, community groups won a huge victory when a State Supreme Court justice this summer halted development of three mixed-use skyscrapers, ranging in height from 730 feet to 1,008 feet, within about three blocks of one another. The lawsuit, brought by the City Council and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, resulted in a hold on development until the projects undergo a lengthy public process called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

The towers, proposed by four developers, would create 2,775 units, of which 694 would be offered below market rate to renters of different incomes. The developers would also improve infrastructure for nearby public housing and upgrade the local subway stop. They plan to appeal the decision.

But opponents are skeptical of the community benefits, and some have alternative proposals for the sites. Many are still angry that the city permitted the luxury condo skyscraper One Manhattan Square to be built nearby, without a more thorough public review.

“We always viewed the lawsuit as a delay tactic,” said Melanie Wang, an organizer with CAAAV, a community group for a largely low-income Chinese membership. While the towers are postponed, she hopes the group can pass its own rezoning plan for Two Bridges, which would require half of all new units built to be affordable, among other guidelines.

Paula Segal, a lawyer with TakeRoot Justice who is representing some of the community groups in one of three lawsuits opposing the plans and on a community-led rezoning application, believes their victory sets a citywide precedent. The hope is that more developers of large-scale residential projects will have to go through the full public review process.

“The developers are on notice that if they don’t work with communities to come up with plans that work with everybody, we’ll see them in court,” said Ms. Segal. She has already identified several other properties with the same zoning designation as the Two Bridges sites, where a similar argument for greater public review could be applied.

The Next Fight

Perhaps the next big land-use battle is brewing in western Queens, where the city is preparing its master plan for the 180-acre Sunnyside Yard, a sprawling active rail yard about six times as large as New York’s latest mega-development, Hudson Yards.

“We feel like it’s going to be another giveaway boondoggle for the rich, just like Hudson Yards,” said Emily Sharpe, a lawyer and founder of the Coalition to Stop Sunnyside Yards. There, too, opponents question the city’s commitment to truly affordable housing, with some arguing that nothing should be built on the massive site at all.

Farther east in Queens, resistance is building against a proposal for a 29-acre site along the polluted Flushing Creek to create 1,725 apartments — with fewer than 100 below-market-rate rentals.

The project, which has already been certified by the City Planning Commission, will include retail, office space, apartments and hotel rooms across nine buildings with a total of 13 towers. Construction could begin as early as this year.

But critics say the project was greenlit with little consideration for flood zone risks, the added infrastructure burden or the potential for displacement.

Flushing quietly became one of the fastest-growing for-sale markets of the last decade, with 3,075 new condos built there from 2009 to 2019, second only to Williamsburg with 3,201, according to StreetEasy. Prices have risen in kind: The median sale price was $650,000 in 2019, up from $350,000 in 2009, a nearly 86 percent jump.

“I think there is a growing sense of an urgent need for change,” said Tarry Hum, the chair of the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College, who is opposed to the project along Flushing Creek.

The success of the protesters in Inwood, who found themselves in similar circumstances, has been a popular topic at recent community meetings — and perhaps shows a way forward, she said.

“I think litigation is the only way to say: This is outrageous.”

For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.

Stefanos Chen is a real estate reporter, based in New York. He joined The Times in 2017 after five years with The Wall Street Journal, where he was a reporter and multimedia producer. @stefanoschen

January 11, 2020

By Emily Sharpe

From Coney Island to Sunnyside; from Jerome Avenue to Bay Street; from newly created districts to forgotten neighborhoods, New York City is being irreparably transformed by the corporate interests that run this city.  At breakneck speed, we are witnessing the mass displacement of long-time residents and small businesses that have made this city great because our elected officials have handed the reins of city governing — what we elected them to do — to corporations and corporate lobbies whose insatiable greed puts their shareholders’ interests above New Yorkers’ when it comes to rezoning, jobs and many other matters in NYC.

Unfortunately for the 99 percent, this is not just a city “gone rogue”, but by design and courtesy of a city agency known as the Economic Development Corporation. This group of unelected and unaccountable men and women, most of whom are “prominent in the financial, commercial, industrial, [or] professional…community of the City of New York” as mandated by the EDC, act as kingmakers to decide which industries, neighborhoods and projects should stand or fall.  Ostensibly created to drive and shape New York’s economic growth, the EDC ironically siphons off money from the budget of the city’s Small Business Services, and then either stands idly by as our mom-and-pop shops fall like dominoes, or precipitates changes that ultimately destroy them, as they did to businesses in the Garment District in favor of the tech sector.

For those who don’t know, the EDC turns out to be a pretty powerful tool for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who directly selects or approves all 27 members of its governing board — with one important exception.  EDC’s bylaws require our mayor to consult with a group called the Partnership for New York City (PFNYC) before he selects the EDC’s chairman of the board.  Who makes up this group that  calls itself, “The Partnership”, and whose chosen member sits atop the EDC?  They are private equity firms like Blackstone, media conglomerates like NewsCorp, pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, controversial consultants like McKinsey and about 250 other “CEOs from New York City’s top corporate and investment firms” that make up its bulk, according to 2017 tax filings.

What does this mean for us, and how are our needs being met in this supposed democracy? Well, while we go about our daily lives, “The Partnership” testifies on our behalf before the State Assembly that “gig workers” essentially prefer to live paycheck-to-paycheck rather than be hampered by health insurance, workers comp or other benefits that come with stable employment.  They also oppose commercial rent stabilization and aggressively promote real estate growth knowing that “truly affordable housing, schools and better transit has severely lagged the rapid pace of growth.”

Meanwhile, the EDC is busy deploying its 500+ employees to get the necessary “buy-in” from communities after it has decided how NYC should be shaped and supported with millions and billions of our taxpayer dollars, despite the fact that we may have other wishes for organic growth, or preservation of what is here now.  They hand out free canvas bags imprinted with not-yet-approved projects, such as the BQX in Queens, to signal to the community that such projects are “done deals” and that nothing can be done to stop them; they fill “steering committees” with our neighbors to get easy approval from those who would give it simply because of the involvement of a person they trust.

Finally, without shame, the EDC holds public meetings encouraging earnest and unsuspecting community members to write their deepest wishes and darkest fears on yellow, pink and green Post-it notes, then uses them to build Trojan horses — “affordable housing”, “good-paying jobs”, “open spaces” — that instead deliver unobtainable luxury residential towers, part-time non-union jobs, and privately-owned public spaces, open subject to the whims of the private owners.

You see, if the EDC wanted to provide those things to us, they would have done so by now.  In a city teeming with global capital and tech start-ups, with city-GDP rapidly rising to an estimated $2.5 trillion by 2035, endless and unrealized promises of “good-paying jobs” from them sound hollow. They are shiny jewels meant to entice us into handing over more and more of our public land and resources for their investment and private use, until there is nothing left for us to control or enjoy.

Alas, though our current system of governing may seem damaged and corrupt beyond repair, we can make our city work for us again.  We can dissolve the EDC.  We can elect politicians who will take back the reins of city governing and listen to the people, not corporate entities.  We can do many things, but we should get started now and use the 2021 elections to get what we regular New Yorkers want.

Opinion: Dissolve the EDC and empower the people on urban development — Queens Daily Eagle

“We can make our city work for us again.”

David BrandQueens Daily Eagle

December 4, 2019: my letter to the NYCEDC in anticipation of the Sunnyside Yards digital townhall. By Connie Murray

Hi and thank you for taking my questions and comments in quick advance of the digital townhall meeting tonight.

It's disappointing this meeting could not happen in person: holding digital events also limits the attendance ability of several local stakeholders, especially some older ones, who are unable to connect due to internet limitations, even access to appropriate equipment. Click here for one constituent who voiced this very concern via another constituent's Twitter account.

It's also not lost on participants that the EDC gets a datagrab from all the folks who sign up for this digital meeting: you get our names, email and IP addresses while we, in turn, will have less of a voice than we ever had. Some people did not want to participate for that very reason: they did not want the EDC to garner this information. It's important that the EDC comprehend such a forum limits the voice of Queens residents while still giving the EDC previously unknown data about participants, especially our IP addresses. Please understand why residents feel a wariness and lack of trust with this whole process and such details.

I wonder how the NYCEDC plans to include any voices which may be left out tonight and who had wanted to be there. Will video be available afterwards? Will you accept feedback after this townhall? Can we see all the questions/comments which were submitted? How are our questions chosen? Will you be fair and ask yourself the tough questions and not just focus on the supportive comments?

Safe and comfortable housing which is realistically affordable (i.e., way way way way way way less expensive than current NYC market rate) is one of my highest priorities for my beloved home borough of Queens: I seek to help establish true *cheap housing* as opposed to developer-friendly "affordable housing," which is ultimately a scam for needy and stressed low-income renters. For Sunnyside Yards, can you provide (many) more details on what housing will look like for this initiative? How many new homes are being planned? Is NYCHA housing included? Hudson Yards is a luxury development with luxury housing and luxury retail: how does the EDC guarantee its Sunnyside Yards project will not be a repeat of Hudson Yards?

The height of any new construction is another big concern for this area: Queens is not Hong Kong or Tokyo or Shanghai; we do not want any more glass towers in our borough. At the Aviation High School meeting in September, Vishaan Chakrabarti mentioned some proposed structures would be 80 stories high which would ruin the sky span and view for thousands of residents, from their homes and from their streets; Mr. Chakrabarti then dismissed concern about building height by declaring city planning for centuries has always been executed by an elite few to thereby benefit the masses. I would argue that great cities, New York and Queens included, were organically and holistically not only designed but, in fact, also built by residents and community organizations according to need and *not* by city planners, a modern construct. And in such a connected time as now, the community can and should be as involved as they'd like to be. It feels like the EDC is purposefully holding Queens residents at such arm's length: you cannot even be in the same space as us. We do not want any more 80 story buildings in Queens, especially in fairytale charming Sunnyside: can the EDC please accept that building height is an important part of the conversation for us?

We implore the EDC to understand how difficult it is for Queens constituents to tolerate new construction which will ruin the characteristic integrity of our sky-filled borough. Queens is known for its sky: you can laugh at us for caring about it but it is a meaningful and irreplaceable aspect of our lives, neighborhoods and homes. The wide Queens sky, the long stripes of blinding outerborough sunsets silhouetted against leafy treetops is some of the most precious air we Queens residents breathe: we rejoice in the beauty around us, around our mismatched buildings and our grand expanse of sky. We will always fight to protect that which is integral to the Borough of Enchantment and one of the most integral aspects to beautiful and wonky Queens is its glorious wide and endless sky. Residents will fight for that sky: we already are.

And for those of us who live in Long Island City, it has been four years of explosive and disruptive development and new construction, a majority of which is executed by people who don't know Queens, don't live in Queens and don't care about Queens. This is an area for international development which manifests as a sad sea of similar-looking rectangular empty glass towers. The developers all create the same looking, monotonous shiny structures: the end result resembles Battery Park City or Fidi but worse, as these LIC buildings contain even less character, even less New York soul. Queensboro Plaza looks like Minneapolis or Tampa: glass towers are not NYC, and they ain't Queens either. We don't need any more of them anywhere in our amazing city. Like on Sunnyside Yards: there goes the neighborhood.

Plus: so many of the LIC tower apartments remain empty. Which is a whole other conversation: why are we still so frantic to build and build and build when what has been frantically built since 2016 still sits so empty? I wonder why these finished homes contain no residents, I wonder why the spaces inside cannot be used for low income housing (yes: seriously) and I wonder why on earth we need even more edifices when we are not honestly or realistically managing what we do have now. Will Sunnyside Yards be another area like LIC: a lot of tall empty luxury buildings blocking the sun and ruining the view? We don't want that. And the people who do want that aren't necessarily from here.

It's bad enough that we now have all these characterless, repetitive, tall (empty) glass towers crowding the sight of the Citi building around Queens Plaza and Court Square: we are now also being fed a narrative that our borough needs even more of this type of development outside of LIC so that the whole borough can be thusly soiled. It has been argued by Yimby proponents that glass towers populating Sunnyside (ergo also making it not sunny) will "soften" the blow to the rest of the borough: the logic being that so much of the sky will be obstructed and thus so much damage will be done to neighborhood character and integrity that residents won't have anything left for which to fight. The same logic was employed at Jonestown in 1978: poisoning the children first will make the adults more willing to die themselves. We in Queens are not drinking the unsweetened grape Flavoraid: we will fight for every expanse of our sky we can and we will fight for our neighborhoods’ character and integrity. We are not Lower Manhattan, we are not downtown Minneapolis, we are not Tampa or Shanghai or Hong Kong or Tokyo: it is not the goal for us to change into cities like those. We are NYC and Queens: we seek to stay NYC and Queens, thank you. We’re the oldest city in the country: we don’t need to destroy and rebuild what we are. It is our goal for our borough to grow reasonably and organically: we need to serve the people who currently live here, not some wealthy internationals who, a decade from now, will be transient renters/buyers of soulless tall glass towers killing the sun over Sunnyside Gardens.

It feels like the EDC has excluded a lot of public input. There were apparently some 75 private meetings held by the EDC with Sunnyside Yards constituents preceding tonight’s townhall (I guess: I mean, a guy I know who was invited to a lot of them actually lives in Astoria; I wonder how you picked who attended, the whole process seems so exclusionary). How can we make this process more fair?

Can you understand the public's resentment? The EDC reports into the Mayor's office: we assume that means the EDC is funded by tax payer money yet the EDC has difficulty interfacing with the public and only serves real estate developers. That feels so unfair: we pay for you but you want to limit interaction with us. Why? We should have a voice with you. You should face us even if we're criticizing you: it's not appropriate that you control local input and interaction and it's bad faith engagement when you do exclude us.

Would you consider the creation of a community-led committee aligned to the EDC so to better represent residents and their voices?

Thank you so much for your time and consideration: I am dedicated to my Queens community and I look forward to the forum this evening,

We, the residents and small business owners of Queens and the 5 boroughs, demand that all public officials and city agencies, including the DCP and the EDC, immediately halt all plans to develop Sunnyside Yards and impose a moratorium on all major new developments and rezonings. We call on you to allocate the tens of billions of dollars intended to develop the yards instead to restore public housing, repair and expand our crumbling infrastructure, save small businesses, and restore habitability for all, not just the wealthy. Further,

STOP using public money to assist the 1% in creating luxury development that displaces, gentrifies, burdens, and discriminates against all but the wealthy, especially those of middle and lower income, of color, immigrants, the poor, the unhoused, the aged, and the disabled.

START to repair and restore safe and adequate infrastructure that serves the needs of our communities, including public transit, schools, sewers, power systems, hospitals, creative space and green space.

STOP the corrupt and undemocratic decision-making process perpetuated by the EDC, DCP and REBNY that only benefits the 1%.

START to reform the land use process and create a democratic system that is truly community-driven. To begin, abolish the quasi-private EDC and eliminate the involvement of real estate in city planning.

STOP using privatization methods like RAD that provide legal ways to evict public housing residents and allow private developers to take our land.

START to repair NYCHA housing and secure permanent, fair housing for all unhoused NYC residents.

Until these demands are met, we say NO to all new development in Queens!

View or download the letter here: https://stopsunnysideyards.com/uploads/SY_FINALPressStmt_11-16-19.pdf

List of demands letter endorsers (as of Nov 23th, 2019):

Art Against Displacement
Artist Studio Affordability Project
Bad Barcode
Bronx Arts Initiative
Brooklyn Anti-gentrification Network (BAN)
CAAAV
Campaign to Stop REBNY Bullies
Coalition to Protect Chinatown & LES
Corporate Campaign, Inc.
Crown Heights Tenant Union
Degentrify
DSA Queens Housing Working Group
East River Park Alliance
Equality for Flatbush
Fight For NYCHA
Flower Lovers Against Corruption (FLAC)
Flushing Workers Center
Harlem Solidarity And Defense
Hearts Across Queens
Housing Justice for All
Human-Scale NYC
Justice for All Coalition
Met Council on Housing
Mi Casa No Es Su Casa
Movement to Protect the People (MTOPP)
New York Boricua Resistance
No New Jails
Not One More Block
Preserve Our Brooklyn Neighborhood
Queens Action Council(QuAC)
Queens Anti-Gentrification Project
Queens Neighborhoods United
Riverside-Edgecombe Neighborhood Association (RENA)
#SaveNYC
7 Train Plan
Showing Up for Radical Justice
Stop Sunnyside Yards
Sunnyside Artists
Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance
Take Back NYC
Take Back the Bronx
Vocal NY
Woodside on the Move
Workers Unite! Film Fest

On November 25, 2019 at noon, we, along with other grassroots groups from Queens and throughout the city, will host a rally to save our neighborhoods. We will ask for a moratorium on all new large developments and rezonings until we get the infrastructure we need and safe housing for our most vulnerable in NYCHA and on the streets. Please read our statement, sign on, and come to show your support!

Test your knowledge of the Sunnyside Yards mega-development project based on the city-funded feasibility study and appendix. Then tell your friends...

1. Which statement is MOST ACCURATE? The Sunnyside Yards Feasibility Study:
   a. Identifies key considerations, planning principles and provides a development framework for a future overbuild;
   b. Was commissioned as a stand-alone document to illustrate the feasibility of such a project and, therefore, key considerations within are not applicable;
   c. Should be followed by more extensive investigations of railroad, engineering and urban issues to further understand its feasibility;
   d. Both A and C.

2. Due to high volumes of traffic along the Main Line, construction of the platform in the rail yards will occur:
   a. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday;
   b. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday-Friday and every other Saturday 7a.m.-7p.m to avoid rush hour train traffic;
   c. Mostly overnights or 55-hour weekend shifts;
   d. A or B, depending on the time of year

3. Covering the rail yard with a platform will:
   a. Make the rail yard slightly warmer for workers underneath, but any hot air will dissipate quickly on its own;
   b. Not be noticeable to the average worker underneath, but may be a problem for those sensitive to heat;
   c. May require ventilation with jet fans, the noise of which will likely be heard by neighbors above the platform and may require noise dampeners;
   d. None of the above

4. NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation lists SY as a Class 2 Superfund Site. A Class 2 site is a site where:
   a. Hazardous waste presents a significant threat to the public health or the environment and action is required;
   b. Contaminants such as lead, PCBs or other carcinogenic materials can be found;
   c. Action is required only if Amtrak has the superfunds to do so;
   d. Both A and B

5. Remedial actions, such as clean-up of the Sunnyside Yards, as required by NYS Department of Environmental Conservancy:
   a. Is complete in some areas, but ongoing in others;
   b. Was cleaned up only to levels appropriate for industrial uses of the land such as a railway;
   c. Limits the use and development of the property to industrial use despite previous excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil;
   d. All of the above

6. Before a platform overbuild can proceed, the following should occur:
   a. Additional soil & groundwater testing should be done to determine whether corrosive elements are present where the foundation shafts are to be installed;
   b. Due to the complexity of the geological layering within SY, comprehensive subsurface investigations will need to be done before foundation design;
   c. Fire is a significant risk presented by enclosing Sunnyside Yards and could release heat that impacts the deck structure and, therefore, fire protection systems should meet the requirements of FDNY, and other building codes;
   d. All of the above

7. Appendix D of the Feasibility Study states that threat analysis, including derailment of trains and their impact, has been incorporated into the design. True or False?

8. It is anticipated that most materials would be delivered by truck to areas surrounding and within Sunnyside Yards as delivery by rail is unlikely to be cost competitive. True or False?

9. Rent for an 800 sq. ft. 1- bedroom in 10 years will cost, based on estimate from 2017, at inflation rate of 3%:
   a. $5,500
   b. $4,000
   c. $2,900
   d. $3,500

10. A Sunnyside Yards overbuild will seamlessly enclose and cover 100% of the train yard, similar to Hudson Yards. True of False?

11. The sewer systems surrounding SY are just adequate enough to support the increase in demand by the overbuild development and, therefore, no new sewers would need to be built. True or False?

12. Due to heavy investments in the late 1990’s the water distribution piping does not need to be modernized. True of False?

13. The overbuild will require Con Ed to build SEVEN additional distribution substations that:
    a. Will need to be housed on approximately ½ acre each, and will not be able to be placed underground like local substations;
    b. Will be funded through Con Ed’s user rate structure;
    c. Includes several microtunnel installations, the route feasibility of which have not been tested
    d. All of the above

14. The estimated cost to build additional utility networks to supply electricity to the area as listed in the “Estimated Cost of Off-site Utility Improvements” in section H of the Feasibility Study Appendix is:
    a. $97 Million
    b. $50 Million
    c. $223 Million
    d. Not estimated

15. Building a large park, or mostly-wild parkland similar to Central Park in order to combat climate change over Sunnyside Yards is:
    a. Something planners are considering, based on drawings in the feasibility study’s appendix;
    b. Is specifically mentioned in the feasibility study as a serious option considering the popularity of the Green New Deal and the passage of New York City’s Climate Mobilization Act;
    c. Both A and B.
    d. None of the above.

16. The Public Open Spaces Network on the Sunnyside Yards overbuild:
    a. Represents approximately 17.5% of the 180-acre project site;
    b. Represents .97 acres per 1000 people which is below the City’s recommended 1.25-acres per 1,000 residents;
    c. Includes formal building entry plazas, and a planted median along a new boulevard;
    d. All of the above.

17. Location and design of the major open spaces will mainly be limited to where the development of towers is not feasible. True or False?

18. Affordable housing will be prioritized over market rate units to ease the homeless crisis in the city, and to be consistent with Mayor de Blasio’s housing initiative. True or False?

19. Commitments by the EDC, DCP, developers and other state & city agencies as to affordability levels, cost, park design, infrastructure needs, etc. will be decided upfront in conjunction with the de Blasio administration and the community, and, therefore, must be adhered to until the project is complete. True or False?

20. An additional subway LINE to alleviate overcrowding in Sunnyside, Astoria & LIC is being discussed. True or False?

21. The existing subway lines are considered adequate to support the overbuild and current residents. True or False?

22. The cost of an overbuild on Sunnyside Yards:
    a. Is relatively reasonable due to advances in construction materials and machinery;
    b. Is relatively reasonable despite strong labor contracts;
    c. Will incur a range of extraordinary costs associated with materials, labor, and equipment;
    d. Both A and B

23. The cost of an overbuild on Sunnyside Yards:
    a. Will be absorbed relatively quickly due to higher economic levels of newly arriving residents;
    b. Will include large up-front expenditures that may not see returns for many decades;
    c. Will include large back-end expenditures that will have been paid for beforehand by higher income residents;
    d. Both A and B

24. The tallest residential building, including a 6-story podium, could be:
    a. 70 stories
    b. 55 stories
    c. 18 stories
    d. 35 stories

25. Deck height on the overbuild is a maximum of 30 feet, or approximately 3 stories. True or False?

26. Deck height is such that:
    a. Creating an accessible link between the deck and the adjacent streets presents a design challenge;
    b. Vehicular access to Sunnyside Yards in some areas is infeasible due to steep grades;
    c. Switchbacks, stairs, or elevators will be required to make pedestrian connections;
    d. All of the above

27. If residential units contain an average of 2.5 people per unit, what is the minimum number of new residents on Sunnyside Yards? Must come closest without going over.

28. If residential units contain an average of 2.5 people per unit, what is the maximum number of new residents on Sunnyside Yards? Must come closest without going over.

29. Large–scale buildings and higher densities will be required to maximize the development potential and the economic viability of the project. True or False?

30. A 10-car Private Car Track, and adjacent access road, is being constructed for individuals, groups, or companies who will own their own rail cars, which will be coupled with regularly scheduled Amtrak service. True or False?

THE FOLLOWING ARE BONUS ??? NOT BASED ON FEASIBILITY STUDY

31. Which former or current NYC official is quoted as saying that Central Park should never have been built?
    a. Dan Doctoroff
    b. Alicia Glen
    c. Bill de Blasio
    d. Vishaan Chakrabarti

32. Who is the architect/master planner hired to develop Sunnyside Yard’s Master Plan?
    a. Dan Doctoroff
    b. Alicia Glen
    c. Bill de Blasio
    d. Vishaan Chakrabarti

33. Which former or current NYC official is working on Sunnyside Yard’s Master Plan and also worked to develop Hudson Yards, which has been deemed the most expensive private development in U.S. history.
    a. Dan Doctoroff
    b. Alicia Glen
    c. Bill de Blasio
    d. Vishaan Chakrabarti

34. How much did the architect/master planner get paid to create the Sunnyside Yards master plan? Must come closest without going over.

ANSWER KEY.......

1. D
2. C
3. C
4. D
5. D
6. D
7. False
8. True
9. A
10. False - Approximately 20% of the total space will be left uncovered due to the difficulty of building over an area with very heavy train traffic. The area to be left open is above the Main Line which runs parallel to Skillman Avenue.

11. False – NYC Dept. Of Environmental Protection’s wastewater treatment plants cannot accept any new/increased stormwater flows. Therefore, a new separate storm-only sewer would have to be built along Skillman Avenue and outfall into the Dutch Kill.
12. False - Upgrade of distribution supply network piping is required to meet increased demand and redundancy in case of pipe breaks.
13. D
14. D
15. D
16. D. Note that in 9/2019, EDC stated that additional open space would be allocated to SY, but that claim has not been verified by a neutral 3rd party.
17. True
18. False - Market-rate units are estimated to be completed at 520 units per year, while affordable units will have to rely on the availability of financing and construction timing.
19. False - Policy changes such as requiring additional affordable housing or additional non-revenue producing community uses (i.e., open space); modifications to tax policy; or changes in construction costs are risks that could reduce the feasibility of this plan.
20. False.

21. False - Existing transit networks lack capacity to handle the additional development of a full buildout. Investments would need to be made to improve capacity at existing subway lines and stations.
22. C
23. B
24. A
25. False - the deck height in the feasibility study is shown to be up to 109 feet high or over 10 stories tall. Note that in 9/2019, EDC stated that a lower height had been negotiated, but that claim has not been verified by a neutral 3rd party.
26. D
27. 27,500 [11,000 units]
28. 60,000 [24,000 units]
29. True
30. True
31. D
32. D
33. D
34. $9 Million

September 12, 2019

Special to the Eagle

By Emily Sharpe

We’ve probably all seen a movie where the public defender in a trial instructs the dubious jurors to close their eyes, relax and do their best to envision what it would be like to walk in the shoes of the accused.

Well, if you have roots in Sunnyside, Astoria, Long Island City or anywhere nearby, you should close your eyes and imagine this:

Imagine looking at a wall three stories high, cordoning off the Sunnyside Yards rail yards along its borders.

Glance up higher — up to 10 stories — as you walk along Skillman Avenue, Northern Boulevard or 43rd Street to see large, high-density buildings of varying heights and shapes, including pencil-shaped glass towers with 70 floors, 13-story behemoths and everything in between.

If you’ve seen Hudson Yards, LIC or the Williamsburg waterfront, you know exactly how this new, walled-off enclave of 25,000 to 60,000 residents will look and feel.

Though planners claim they will take pains to account for the historic low-rise district of Sunnyside Gardens and the high-rises of LIC for purposes of determining where to place certain buildings, there is no doubt that any building sitting on a platform will cast shadows over the coveted garden homes, actual gardens and adjacent areas, robbing everyone below of sun, sky and clouds.

Moreover, any new neighborhood built over a rail yard that slopes upward from a perimeter wall could never connect the neighborhoods of Sunnyside and Astoria — as the master planner of the Sunnyside Yards project will tell you.

The new enclave will feature limited access for cars — due to impossible grades — and a new boulevard that traverses the length of the yards. Pedestrian entrances will only be reached via escalators and ramps in switch-back patterns. Thus, residents will witness a new gated Oz in their midst.

It will be a modern, high-tech, luxury-land looming over the rest of us with estimated rents ranging from $5,500 for a modest 1-bedroom to $7,600 for a 2-bedroom within 10 years.

Also imagine 10, 20, 50 years’ worth of construction noise, dust, and traffic congestion.

We should learn from another mega-railyard project occurring right now: Atlantic Yards, where a 10-year plan to build has become a 25-year plan.

Where accounts of jack-hammering every single night during a five-week period between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. were described as torture; where construction that begins at 7 a.m. six days a week is the norm.

Did you know that building a platform over the busiest rail yard in the U.S. will require endless overnight weekend work at Sunnyside Yards to avoid disruption to train traffic?

Learn from Atlantic Yards about the lack of accountability from the agencies in charge and from the original developers who have sold their rights and are, by now, long gone.

Fast forward to the reality of Atlantic Yard’s privately-owned public spaces, which are open to all, except when they aren’t.  There, a promised seasonal running track and ice-skating rink on top of Barclays Center instead became a “green roof” installed to absorb concert noises. Twelve-foot-high parking garage vents are planned to be placed in a park meant for relaxation and fresh air.

Fast forward to unreliable, part-time employment, with no health insurance. Union jobs were promised by developers at Atlantic Yards, but they never materialized.  And of course, the promised “affordable” housing promised levels has not become a reality.

Now open your eyes, and come to Sunnyside on Monday to hear the Economic Development Corporation present this ill-conceived project.

Emily Sharpe is an attorney and the founder of Stop Sunnyside Yards. The New York City Economic Development Corporation will host a forum on the project Monday in Long Island City.

Opinion: Imagine the disruptive impact of Sunnyside Yards — Queens Daily Eagle

“We should learn from another mega-railyard project occurring right now: Atlantic Yards, where a 10-year plan to build has become a 25-year plan.”

Special to the EagleQueens Daily Eagle

See photos from the event!

By IRE Admin | 05.30.2019

The Golden Padlock Award recognizes the most secretive publicly-funded agency or person in the United States.

Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. (IRE) is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. IRE was formed in 1975 to create a forum in which journalists throughout the world could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques and news sources.

New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC): For controlling millions in public money while trying to avoid public oversight. Though technically a not-for-profit, the NYCEDC performs government functions, like managing city contracts, and controls hundreds of millions of dollars of public money and assets. In 2018, when New York City was among the jurisdictions vying to be the home of a new Amazon headquarters, the NYCEDC entered into a non-disclosure agreement with the online retailer, agreeing to keep secret certain aspects of their negotiations on behalf of the city.  An unusual feature of the NDA was a promise from the NYCEDC to “give Amazon prior written notice” of any Freedom of Information Law requests related to the city’s bid. More recently, the NYCEDC has come under fire from the city’s comptroller for a lack of transparency in the bidding and selection process for the city’s ferry program. According to comptroller Scott Stringer, the NYCEDC has failed to “provide the full range of information, supporting documents and analyses necessary” to assess its $232 million contract with a ferry operator.

Courtesy of Investigative Reporters & Editors https://www.ire.org

NYCEDC UNVEILED by Emily Sharpe

Residents and small business in western Queens are being descended upon by New York City’s Economic Development Corporation or EDC, a supposed public entity that acts like a for-profit growth-based corporation putting its thumb on the scale to determine which industries, projects and neighborhoods will stand, and which will fall.  The EDC is coming for the stated purpose of gathering community input to be incorporated into the Master Plan for the Sunnyside Yards mega-development, close to 7 times larger than Hudson Yards.  They say they are coming to develop Sunnyside Yards because cash-strapped Amtrak needs money to expand operations and Mayor Bill de Blasio and the EDC agree that tax-payer dollars, estimated at $100 billion (based on Hudson Yards), will be well-spent on replacing long-time denizens, increasing rents and making quality of life for the next 50-100 years a living nightmare, as long as they can reap benefits for themselves.

Although shrouded in mystery, the EDC contains little more than Goldman Sachs alumni, out to maximize profits for their cronies investing in NYC. Former deputy mayor Alicia Glen and James Patchett, president and CEO of the EDC and former chief of staff to Glen, have set the wheels in motion for Sunnyside Yards and they do not play fair.

The chosen helmsman to steer this behemoth to completion is Vishaan Chakrabarti who believes Central Park should never have been built, thinks Governors Island should be connected to Manhattan by landfill, and has had his hand in questionable city projects too numerous to count. It is unclear to the layperson why EDC chose Chakrabarti, or who the other contenders were, but perhaps it is his vision of hyper-density, which necessarily means seemingly endless opportunities for the real estate industry and for EDC to maximize their investments, that won him the job.

Whatever the reasons, Chakrabarti is well-versed in EDC tactics. Tactics such as obfuscating answers to earnest questions about cost and affordable housing and deck height from residents at a public community meeting on March 26, 2019. Tactics like exclusively partnering with LaGuardia Community College for a new program, Cyber NYC, when the president, Gail Mellow, is on the steering committee; asking reliably out-spoken opponents of the project to be on the steering committee, presumably to be silenced or influenced; inexplicably delaying large public meetings, while continuing to make its presence known in less conspicuous ways, such as staffing booths at NYCHA housing events, Queens Pridefest, Sunnyside and LIC Shines, where tickets range from $40-$400, thereby excluding most members of the community and preventing their voices from being heard.  

For their prowess, Investigative Reporters and Editors ("IRE") named the EDC a finalist for their 2019 Golden Padlock Award in celebration of the "most secretive government agency or individual in the United States," for "controlling millions in public money while trying to avoid public oversight" by signing non-disclosure agreements with Amazon and "a lack of transparency in the bidding and selection process for the city's ferry program."  Yes, it is clear that the EDC does not play fair.