By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Western Queens locals are wary of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plan to collaborate with President Donald Trump to build 12,000 units of housing in the World\u2019s Borough, where the mayor once lived and where the president was raised. <\/p>\n
A number of officials and local leaders said on Friday that they had concerns about Trump\u2019s involvement in Mamdani\u2019s proposal to resurrect a city plan to create a new neighborhood atop Sunnyside Yard, which sits just beyond the foot of the Queensboro Bridge and stretches into Long Island City. While many applauded the effort to bring much-needed housing to Queens, they said they wanted a role in shaping the proposal, which they didn\u2019t know was on the table until Mamdani announced it after his surprise visit with the president at the White House on Thursday. <\/p>\n
City Councilmember Julie Won, who is running for Congress against a Mamdani-backed candidate and who represents the busy rail yard, was especially critical of the lack of communication. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny proposal that reshapes Sunnyside Yard must begin with the neighbors who live here,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cOur community deserves a seat at the table long before anyone, including the mayor, makes headlines in the Oval Office.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome the opportunity to build more deeply affordable housing and other federal investments for public transit and other infrastructure, but it cannot be done behind closed doors unilaterally,” she added. <\/p>\n
Borough President Donovan Richards struck a more approving tone in a conversation with reporters on Friday. Still, he said he\u2019ll believe the plan, which would cost an estimated $21 billion and require significant federal funding, when he sees it. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the check cashes, then I’ll truly believe it,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t want to put the cart before the horse, but at the end of the day, the mere fact that this is generating a national conversation around Queens\u2026and Sunnyside Yard, is a great opportunity, especially as we face a looming housing crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BP has long been a critic of the Trump administration, but said he has no complaints if the president is involved in bringing such a massive project to fruition. <\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics makes strange bedfellows, but if our mayor can get something done for Queens County, we’re not going to turn it down,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Richards has been mulling over a potential revival of the Sunnyside Yard project, which was proposed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, for years. He brought it up with the Adams administration to no avail. His big idea, and one he hopes to push as this project develops, is to put a basketball arena in Sunnyside Yard that would host the New York Liberty. It would be the first women\u2019s-specific venue in the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think this could be a historic moment, once again, to do something out of the box, something creative, and still address the affordability crisis,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michael Gianaris took a similar tone of cautious optimism in comments to Gothamist. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmbitious plans for Sunnyside Yards have come and gone many times over several decades,” Gianaris told the outlet. \u201cIf Mayor Mamdani can make something happen there that brings thousands of sorely needed affordable housing units, it will be a legacy-defining accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Out of left field\u2019<\/p>\n
It was a surprise to many when Mamdani came out of the unannounced meeting with the prospective plan to build 12,000 units of housing in Sunnyside Yard. <\/p>\n
Most of all for the residents of Western Queens, whose memories of the previous attempt to build over the century-old train tracks are still fresh in their minds. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that Sunnyside Yard was part of the conversation between President Trump and Mayor Mamdani definitely came out of left field,\u201d said local Community Board 2 Chair Anatole Ashraf. \u201cAs a community board \u2013 and as a local \u2013 we hadn’t heard of Sunnyside Yard in a long while. It’s been many years since we saw any formal presentation at all.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ashraf called it a \u201ctrue big swing toward addressing the housing crisis,\u201d and said that CB2 is in support of a plan that would bring deeply affordable housing. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny proposal to build housing over Sunnyside Yard should reflect that commitment and meet the scale of New York City\u2019s housing needs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mamdani said that he proposed 12,000 new affordable homes, including 6,000 new Mitchell-Lama-style homes, as well as parks, schools and other amenities over the Sunnyside Yard train tracks. <\/p>\n
The plan would be the largest housing and infrastructure investment in New York City in more than 50 years, according to City Hall, and would be paid for through a substantial $21 billion in federal grants. <\/p>\n
The housing would be built on top of a deck, which would be the largest in the world, constructed over the preexisting tracks. <\/p>\n
He pitched the plan to Trump with props. <\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s office brought a custom-made graphic imitating a New York Daily News front page that read \u201cTrump to City: Let\u2019s Build\u201d with the subheadline reading \u201cTrump delivers 12,000+ homes.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump was photographed alongside Mamdani holding up the fake Daily News wood in one hand, with a copy of the infamous \u201cFord to City: Drop Dead\u201d front page in the other. <\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated event in Brooklyn on Friday, Mamdani said that Trump was “interested\u201d in the project. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe president shared his interest in the proposal, and I am encouraged by the fact that we will continue to talk about this proposal,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is going to be a long process.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a long-standing project that will also require a long-standing commitment, and we’re just at the very beginning of it,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
City Hall also said that Mamdani emphasized to Trump the need for affordable housing development, and creating it with less red tape than is normally required in New York City\u2019s land use approval process. <\/p>\n
\u2018We’re going to have to do something with that area\u2019<\/p>\n
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York City Economic Development Corporation had a plan for a mega-development at Sunnyside Yard. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Western Queens locals are wary of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plan to collaborate with President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-147837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}