Housing advocates and developers have found an unlikely ally \u2014 well, sort of \u2014 in City Councilmember Vickie Paladino.<\/p>\n
The northeast Queens lawmaker voted Tuesday to approve a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application that could create almost 250 units of senior housing in the Bay Terrace section of the borough.<\/p>\n
SEE ALSO: Property Tax Policy Is Housing Policy, and the Stakes for New York City Are Real<\/a><\/p>\n Barone Management<\/a> and Apex Development Group<\/a> have been planning the eight-story project at 217-14 24th Avenue since before the ballot measures offering an alternative to ULURP<\/a> were approved by voters in the November general election.<\/p>\n Barone and Apex did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Paladino stated in a video posted to her Facebook<\/a> account that without the ballot measures offering the developers recourse through the Affordable Housing Appeals Board, she would not have voted in favor of the project and feared losing a seat at the table.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m faced with a decision,\u201d Paladino said. \u201cIf I vote no, the project is taken completely out of my hands and it gets handed to [Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and Mayor Zohran Mamdani] on appeal, and we already know that they want this project to be bigger with lower income [threshold for residents], and it could even have a component of transitional housing. That is not what we want for Bayside.\u201d<\/p>\n While Paladino wants a smaller development with more parking and market-rate housing, the appeals board does not have the authority to change the scope of the project.<\/p>\n But the project has grown in scope since a filing in December<\/a>, which showed that it would have just 183 dwelling units.<\/p>\n To housing advocates, Paladino\u2019s reversal on the project showed that deference to the local City\u00a0 Council members by other lawmakers was officially over. Critics of council deference had blamed the practice for forcing developers to delay or even abandon certain projects, such as One45 in Harlem<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSomething unthinkable happened today: Vickie Paladino voted to approve new housing in her district,\u201d Open New York<\/a> Executive Director Annemarie Gray said in a statement. \u201cPrior to the passage of four pro-housing ballot proposals in November, this never would\u2019ve happened. But these charter reforms have changed the rules of housing in New York, ensuring that every neighborhood does its part to build more housing.\u201d<\/p>\n