Lawmakers approved a plan Wednesday to rezone a 54-block swath of the Queens waterfront neighborhood, including industrial lots where new housing was previously restricted.
Anable Basin in Long Island City—once eyed by retail giant Amazon for its Queens headquarters before the controversial plan fell apart—is part of the rezoning area. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
The City Council approved a plan Wednesday to rezone a stretch of Long Island City, including industrial lots where new housing was previously restricted—what officials say will spur nearly 15,000 new apartments in the coming years, as the city struggles to fill a historic housing shortage.
The so-called OneLIC plan will update zoning rules for 54 blocks near the East River waterfront, including along Anable Basin (the inlet where retail giant Amazon once planned its controversial “HQ2” offices.) It’s expected to create more housing than any neighborhood-specific rezoning in the last 25 years, officials said; around 4,350 of the new units will be income-restricted.
The deal also includes $650 million for a range of local projects, including funds for a new waterfront esplanade, sewer upgrades, and repairs at the nearby NYCHA Queensbridge Houses.
“The approval of this plan opens the door for more New Yorkers of all income levels to live and work here—and to benefit from new open space and community investments,” City Planning Commissioner Dan Garodnick said in a statement Wednesday.
The neighborhood rezoning is the fifth passed under Mayor Eric Adams, who leaves office at the end of the year. It’s also the second in Queens: in late October, the Council approved a plan to allow more housing in Downtown Jamaica, what officials say will help address a dire need as New Yorkers struggle to afford increasingly high rents, and more than 100,000 people sleep in shelters each month.
Areas rezoned for residential under the OneLIC plan will be subject to the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) rules for the first time, requiring at least 20 to 25 percent of new units built on private sites are affordable.
Those apartments will be reserved for households earning up to either 40 or 60 percent of the Area Median Income, or AMI (equivalent to $58,320 or $87,480 a year for a three-person household, respectively). The city also plans to develop 1,000 affordable units on public land within the rezoning area, at least half of which must be set aside for “Extremely” and “Very Low-Income” households—or those earning no more than 50 percent AMI.
Long Island City is no stranger to development: the neighborhood’s population grew by 60 percent between 2013 and 2023, according to the Long Island City Partnership, a local business advocacy group. Glossy apartment towers have bloomed along the area’s waterfront.
The waterfront along Hunters Point just south of the rezoning area, where many new buildings have risen over the last several years. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
That existing growth is why some locals have opposed the rezoning, saying an influx of new residents will further strain local infrastructure that already hasn’t kept up.
“Long Island City has not avoided development. So why is all this new development coming here?” said Lisa Goren, a member of the Long Island City Coalition/Hunters Point Community Coalition.
“The City of Yes was supposed to distribute housing equitably,” she added, in reference to Mayor Adams’ plan passed last year, which overhauled zoning rules citywide to make it easier to build.
The Coalitions have been advocating for an alternative plan, dubbed the Hunters Point North Vision Plan for Resiliency, which calls for a robust waterfront park and climate resiliency measures along the shoreline. They say that any new housing should be built further inland, outside the floodplain, noting that the area was hit hard by flooding during Hurricane Sandy.
“We have to do resiliency and we have to house people. We can do both. And that’s what we’re saying,” Goren said. “We’re saying that we’re given a false choice in this plan.”
But city officials argue the rezoning area has been held back by outdated rules that restrict new housing in a neighborhood that’s prime for more homes, pointing to its proximity to Manhattan and access to multiple subway and bus lines.
Councilmember Julie Won, who represents the area, said she fought to secure millions in community benefits as part of the deal, like the upgrades to the nearby Queensbridge Houses and improved sewer infrastructure.
A view of the Queensboro Bridge from Vernon Boulevard. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)
The city has also pledged to open 1,300 new school seats and add five acres of open space under the Queensboro Bridge—including comprehensive renovations to Queensbridge Baby Park, a once popular neighborhood space which has fallen into disrepair.
This and the planned new waterfront esplanade will result in a continuous stretch of open space along the neighborhood’s waterfront, Won noted, linking Queensbrige Park north of the rezoning area to Gantry Plaza State Park and Hunters Point South Park to the south.
“All that is long overdue,” Won said ahead of the Council’s vote on the plan Wednesday. “Finally, through this project, we will become one Long Island City to integrate current and future residents in all corners of this neighborhood.”
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A previous version of this story misspelled Lisa Goren’s last name. City Limits apologizes for the error.
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