Monday, July 27, 2015

Assi Plaza plan has to pass muster at CPC

From the Queens Chronicle:

Flushing West, the area designated by Mayor de Blasio for upzoning and more affordable housing near the Flushing Creek, just got a little more crowded.

That’s if a developer is allowed to proceed with a mega-mixed-use project announced last week that does not seem to include affordable housing.

A plan by a new development group, Triple Star Realty, calls for a waterfront complex with 360 residential condominiums, a 200-room hotel, a supermarket and other stores plus medical and other offices.

The site, at 131-01 39 Ave., is the former Assi Plaza, an Asian grocery store that closed last year. It is located off College Point Boulevard and is across the Flushing Creek from Citi Field.

But zoning experts on Flushing West said that the developer must reach out to City Planning — which is handling rezoning of the area — before proceeding.

As outlined by the mayor late last year, Flushing West includes a 10-block area along Flushing Creek. It is one of three neighborhoods in the city in which the mayor wants to create 200,000 affordable housing units.

The City Planning Commission chairman said at the time that it could take two to three years to implement. In the works is an environmental impact statement for the area. City Planning is also preparing the uniform land use review procedure papers.

Paul Graziano, a zoning expert from Flushing, said he believes it will take a year or two because of the lengthy ULURP process.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep an eye on CB7's land use committee....especially Chuck Alelian regarding this site.

Anonymous said...

Only a moron would build more hotel rooms - especially in the outer boroughs. In March the rate was down to 68%, and per-night rates were falling due to the glut of available rooms. Since then, even more have come on-line. What happens to these unused rooms? Homeless/Transient housing? The owner will extract $ any way possible...

Anonymous said...

Got to house all the Chinese visitors coming to "Little Taipei" as Flushing has become known.
Whew...the fragrance of the Flushing River!
Be sure to keep the windows closed during low tide.