Nov. 23, 2015 By Michael Florio
Mayor Bill de Blasio joined local officials this afternoon to break ground on the second and final phase of the 5,000-unit Hunters Point South project.
The groundbreaking represented the beginning of phase II for the construction of the park as well as the infrastructure for the 3,000 units that will stretch from 54th Avenue through to the Newtown Creek.
Phase I of Hunters Point South Park was completed in 2013 and spans a little more than five acres from 50th to 54th Avenues. Phase I of the housing development covers the 925 affordable units that were built on parcels A and B as well as the 1,200 units that TF Cornerstone is constructing on Parcel C.
Phase II will expand the park another five acres all the way over to Newtown Creek. The 3,000 other units, 60 percent of which will be affordable, will be built on Parcels D,E,F, and G.
Construction of the park as well as the infrastructure and roadways for the buildings are expected to be completed by the end of 2018. The housing that accompanies Phase II will begin immediately thereafter.
De Blasio heaped praise on Hunters Point South.
“This is the largest affordable housing development to be built in New York City since the 1970s,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio spoke of Long Island City residents who were afraid of getting priced out of their own neighborhood.
“The answer to those fears is to develop new housing,” he said.
The Mayor also said the City took this formerly industrial land that was not being utilized and decided to use it to provide housing. Once completed, the units will provide housing for the working class, he added.
“There will be people of all walks of life and all different incomes living in these towers,” he said. “We are building a whole new neighborhood right here.”
Preliminary construction started on Phase II in September with the site being cleared of trash, debris and old structures.
In early 2016, an infrastructure contractor will be brought on to start building the roadways, while a marine contractor will begin work on the shoreline.
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz joined de Blasio on Monday afternoon.
“This is a phenomenal day,” she said. “I look forward to the thousands of new families that will now be able to come into our borough.”
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer also joined de Blasio.
“This is an amazing opportunity to make a great neighborhood even greater,” he said. “It allows more people to live in this neighborhood.”
Van Bramer added that more schools will need to be constructed to serve the new residents.
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18 Comments
To keep the 40/60 mix of market rate to subsidized apartments for all of HPS, more than 800 of the apartments in he next building should be market rate. I hope everyone holds the politicians to this so they can’t put more subsidized apartments into this than was originally promised.
5000 new apartments and the same ol 7 train. Yeah, this will not be creating a great neighborhood.
Everything between Queensboro Plaza and Vernon will be overcrowded and congested.
What everyone fails to see in the “affordable housing” game is the role the city plays in handicapping developers with bureaucracy, red tape and taxes. All this does is allow our cronies in City Hall to collect their outrageous pound of flesh while pretending to care. If they simply made it less impossible to build and gave tax incentives, the boroughs would be full of affordable housing. But that doesn’t line the politician’s pockets…so doesn’t happen, whether Big Bank Bloomie or Fidel deBlasio are in office. Too many other pols in the mix who need to feed the cronyism.
“Affordable” has many meanings, from very low income to upper middle class. I think the term affordable fell into use because no one wanted to say “low income housing” or even “middle income housing.” I just wish this site would also capture all of the other “affordable apartments,” particularly the very low rent controlled ones being occupied by people who don’t deserve them based on their incomes.
Affordable in NYC should mean affordable to Middle-Class. NYC has too many low income housing that reaps no taxes from families. That is what projects are for and there are too many (search 1970’s New York City for proof). NYC needs to keep its strategy of keeping middle class and upper middle class families in the city in order to receive the tax revenue to improve its services.
God. The more I hear Van Bramer spew his rhetoric, the less and less I like the guy. He is all talk and no action. If you have been in the neighborhood as long as I have, you see that he says the same things year after year about the same problems the community has complained about year after year. Be it the school situation or the 7-train, it’s the same line from that guy year after year. He says the right things but nothing of substance. It’s sad that he is like any other politician. We are his stepping stone to greater things.
And LIC is where he dumps everything that he doesn’t want in Sunnyside-where he lives.
“Affordable Housing” is just a fig leaf for politicians to hide their naked pandering to their wealthy real-estate masters.
I took my family off the list because the 3bedroom unit I applied for was no longer available at HP south. I was advised there were 2 bedrooms on a higher tier. We could not afford this tier and opted out. The letter came back saying we were off the list because I asked to be taken off the list. It said nothing about not being able to afford the rents. This is vital information and it’s missing from the documentation needed to give full reports to the people we elect. If they don’t have this information, then the information they have is flawed. The affordable housing situation is a complete fabrication of every NY politicians imagination.
Gee…maybe you should just move into a neighborhood you can afford. Think of all the aggravation you would save not having to figure out the paperwork to submit for your handout.
It’s because housing is treated more like a stock portfolio than a basic human necessity in this city. Developers keep making absurd cash wells for the wealthy to stash cash with very little risk, while landlords and real estate agents get their cut by jacking up prices around an effective housing shortage. Might as well be Wall Street, with all the inside players winning, all the investors winning, and the ones to live under the misery of it all being those who simply can’t pay their way into the club (i.e. most of us).
This is the 2nd time I’ve heard TF Cornerstone being mentioned that they’re developing the next parcel of affordable housing, but there was never any notice of requests of proposal as is the law.
Does anyone know if this article is just maybe just repeating what was wrongly stated by someone else or if this is in fact the case…that TF Cornerstone is the next developer of Parcel C?
https://tfc.com/journal/development/exciting-announcement-new-development-hunters-point-south-lic
If elected officials admit we need more schools to serve the community, why are they not included in this plan?
Just saying you want them is not doing anything.
This is city land, so what is preventing them from demanding that schools are included in the plans when new residential tower are being build.
“We are building a whole new neighborhood right here.” but we forgot schools and transportation, sorry, I was asleep when that small detail was discussed.
I’ll try better next time.
Who is doing the negotiations here?
Lou, don’t you know that JVB was apart of all the negotiations? It’s just that he was seated on the other side of the table from us. What a joke this guy is.
PO, it was a rhetorical question, of course I know who’s involved.
I’m just amazed how it can happen again and again. He has to be re-elected by us and since he’s not at the level yet of needing huge resources to be elected, you would think he sees the backlash coming from the community who are left with not enough schools. This is very high on most peoples agenda, so I just don’t see the calculation he’s making.
It’s not just about the schools, it’s about everything the neighborhood is lacking as they pack in more and more development at the expense of our quality of life.
And it’ll get worse. If they start allowing 28-story buildings on Vernon, this street is going look like a back alley in Hong Kong.