{"id":153380,"date":"2026-03-05T03:53:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153380\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:53:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:53:23","slug":"housing-solution-queens-gazette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153380\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing Solution – Queens Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani met with President Donald Trump on February 26 to propose a historic investment in af\u00adfordable housing at Sunnyside Yard, home to the busiest rail yard in North America. The proposal represents a once- in-a-generation oppor\u00adtunity to confront the city\u2019s housing crisis at the scale it demands. \u201cNew York City is facing a generational affordability challenge,\u201d Mayor Mamdani said. \u201cWorking families are being priced out of the neighborhoods they built. To meet this moment, we need a true federal partner prepared to invest boldly and act urgently. I appreciated the opportunity to speak directly with President Trump about building more housing in any single project than our city has seen since 1973.\u201d Photo public domain<\/p>\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mam\u00addani met with President Donald Trump on Febru\u00adary 26 to propose a historic investment in affordable housing at Sunnyside Yard, home to the busiest rail yard in North America. The proposal represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to confront the city\u2019s housing crisis at the scale it de\u00admands. At the center of the discussion: securing more than $21 billion in federal grants to construct the world\u2019s largest deck over the site, allowing the City to build 12,000 new affordable homes, in\u00adcluding 6,000 new Mitchell-Lama-style homes; create 30,000, good-paying union jobs; and deliver new parks, schools and health care clinics. If real\u00adized, the project would mark the largest housing and infrastructure investment in New York City in more than 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City is facing a generational affordability challenge,\u201d Mayor Mamdani said. \u201cWorking families are being priced out of the neighborhoods they built. To meet this moment, we need a true federal partner prepared to invest boldly and act urgently. I appreciated the opportu\u00adnity to speak directly with President Trump about building more housing in any single project than our city has seen since 1973.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani emphasized the need to strengthen financing tools that support affordable development, preserve public housing, and mod\u00adernize regulatory pathways to accelerate construc\u00adtion without sacrificing labor standards or community input. He also underscored the city\u2019s commitment to transparency, fiscal responsibility, and collaboration in deploying federal funds \u2013 en\u00adsuring every dollar delivers safe, affordable hous\u00ading for New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

Both parties agreed to continue discussions in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. stated the following in response to a proposal outlined in an Oval Office meeting between Mayor Mamdani and President Trump to rede\u00advelop Sunnyside Yard, the sprawling 180-acre train facility in Sunnyside. According to the Mayor\u2019s Office, the plan the mayor and president discussed would see the world\u2019s largest deck con\u00adstructed over the yard to allow for the creation of 12,000 units of affordable housing, schools, healthcare facilities and more \u2014 funded, at least in part, through $21 billion in federal grants. \u201cSun\u00adnyside Yard\u2019s untapped potential as New York City\u2019s next great community is even more im\u00admense now than it was a decade ago, when the city first proposed such a redevelopment plan. As we struggle still in 2026 to address our city\u2019s unprece\u00addented housing crisis, it would be a dereliction of duty to not strive toward building thousands of af\u00adfordable homes, schools, parks, healthcare facili\u00adties and more \u2014 like a new arena specifically for the New York Liberty \u2014 atop Sunnyside Yard,\u201d said Borough President Richards. \u201cMayor Mam\u00addani campaigned on making housing more afford\u00adable for New Yorkers, and I commend him for continuing to advance that conversation on a na\u00adtional scale by advocating directly to President Trump about the need to build more homes in their shared native borough. In the event that New York City does secure significant federal investment for this project, I would strongly encourage the ad\u00administration to conduct a comprehensive, commu\u00adnity centered planning process that takes into account the current and future needs of The World\u2019s Borough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council Member Julie Won\u2019s statement on proposed Sunnyside Yard Development Project: \u201cOne day after President Trump\u2019s State of the Union, where he attacked and degraded our immi\u00adgrants and trans communities, the mayor opted to meet with the President re-proposing a failed hous\u00ading project in my district. Six years ago, Congress\u00adwoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Gianaris and my predecessor, Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, along with community advo\u00adcates, ended the Sunnyside Yard project due to a myriad of concerns. Any proposal that reshapes Sunnyside Yard must begin with the neighbors who live here. Our community deserves a seat at the table long before anyone, including the mayor, makes headlines in the Oval Office especially for a project they have previously rejected. Currently, there are no public approvals in place for this proj\u00adect\u2014 City Hall should commit to a ULURP process with the Council and the community for such a significant change for a project of this scale. The City\u2019s housing crisis demands solutions that center local voices and working families. Commu\u00adnity centered planning requires transparency, early engagement, firm commitments to affordability, social infrastructure, feasibility, and protections against displacement. I welcome the opportunity to build more deeply affordable housing and other federal investments for public transit and other in\u00adfrastructure, but it cannot be done behind closed doors unilaterally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani met with President Donald Trump on February 26 to propose a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-153380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153380","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=153380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}