Hundreds of Long Island City residents and business owners rallied with community leaders and elected officials Saturday against the city’s plan to develop two plots of publicly owned waterfront property on 44th Drive and a neighboring Department of Education building on Vernon Boulevard.
The proposal, announced in 2016, would turn the city-owned lots into commercial space, luxury apartments and a school, but the community has other ideas that are not being heard by the de Blasio administration.
“With the critical lack of infrastructure in the area, from schools to transportation to senior centers, the fact that the city would try to sell precious public neighborhood land to private developers shows their shortsightedness and lack of understanding of the needs of the neighborhood,” Hunters Point Civic Association President Brent O’Leary said. “I am proud of our neighborhood for standing up to the city and saying our neighborhood will not be sold off. If you want to develop community land, it is the community who should be deciding how that best helps the neighborhood not outside interests.”
The rally was organized by the group Coalition LIC whose online petition has over 1,000 signatures and would prefer the waterfront lots be turned into parkland with wetlands that would afford climate protection in a flood zone. The coalition wants the DOE building turned into a school with a community recreation center, artist and light manufacturing space, a cultural center, a climate change educational center and job training.
18 comments:
They are a bit too late to the party. Have they seen what's been going up in LIC for the last 7 years?
LIC is located close to Manhattan. No one can stop the city's plans for it. Move east if you want a quiet life.
Those are the facts. Wake up and smell the coffee.
>>>Move east if you want a quiet life.
The problem is that large scale development is also happening in the east. They are trying to develop every square inch of the boroughs.
LOL at the above comments.
The city got away with what they did in LIC because there were very few people living there.
Now there are loads of people there, and they're not taking shit anymore. Blocking this city land giveaway is just the first step.
One might argue 'it's too little too late', and that's true to a degree, but the developers and city gov are learning they're not going to be able to ram through changes unopposed now.
As for moving west, sure - when apartments come with basics like dishwashers, working electricity and heat in the winter. Or maybe when the subway actually runs reliably and you can get to work in under an hour and a half (even from nearby areas).
If the city makes $$ from the sale of these plots and it all goes back to the community, I am fine with it.
LIC is located close to Manhattan. No one can stop the city's plans for it. Move east if you want a quiet life.
Those are the facts. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Do you work for Crowley or Katz? Astoria Civic or JVB? Maybe you all need to take a high school civics course. The people who foot the bill, the citizens, are the ultimate authority on who does what to whom.
You know that lic is a fucking overdeveloped MESS, so why move there then. This shit has been going on there for the last 10 years.
Just wondering if these are older, longtime residents or the newer variety. Given that they are actively organizing to voicie their objections and someone is actually taking notice, my guess would be the latter.
So the luxuriant uptown grandiose that spent a million dollars on a condo will be looking at crane booms and mirror glass ? Ha-ha what a bunch of friggan schmucks, I wonder what they think of so called "progress" mayor big bird now.
I can get the same "million dollar view" on Airbnb in Maspeth north for $40 a day, no lease, I don't have to buy it.
What a bunch of suckers !
Wake up and smell the coffee ?
You mean wake up and smell the 7 train, the only rails in the world that hosts safety masks and spitting Olympics hourly.
Hey Jackson, No more places to smell coffee. They took away all the soup kitchens, food carts and roach mobiles. You need to haul you ass to Vernon blvd and hunt for coffee, get on line in some deli with some 3rd world shit with AIDS, TB or some other alphabet disease coughing on you.
Yea, Good Times !!
Aren't progressive liberals progress and diversity wonderful ?
Just wait till they take you guns away, including premises permits and those towers are full of homeless, drug addicts, sec 8s, jailbird felons, murderers and MS13 gang bangers out on the take with nothing to lose. Wireless ankle shackle GPS monitoring my ass, because tracing and tracking is only good AFTER they kill you.
-Ned
www.nra.org
Those elected officials sold out LUC a long time ago yet you keep electing them
Yes, we should all listen to NRA Ned. The NRA the scourge of society, that does not even want to have sensible gun laws.
FACT: No one is trying to take you fucking guns away, not the progressive liberals, not the Democrats, NO ONE. Where has this even be an issue of taking guns away. WHY is this always brought up, when there is not truth to it at all nor not one action to prove this. Sensible guns laws is NOT taking your guns away.
NED, you sure you are not a Russian troll, stirring up the pot.
Stupidity & Ignorance is major disease.
The people should know that their elected officials sold them out on this, LIC is not what it appears, not enough schools, not enough shopping, and these snowflakes are bellyaching about this? LIC was destined for this, and Astoria will soon follow...look at all the empty storefronts on Steinway..
@Joe Moretti said...
"Yes, we should all listen to NRA Ned"
So what's your solution Joe ?
Large scale development IS NOT HAPPENING in eastern Queens....,maybe Flushing which is zoned for it. You simply DO NOT know what you're talking about.
>No one is trying to take you fucking guns away, not the progressive liberals, not the Democrats, NO ONE.
Cuomo is. All those people pushing for "assault weapons" ban are.
Joe Moretti said...
Yes, we should all listen to NRA Ned
Emm well, Ned and that guy Astoria George do have a great track records on being correct. If you want fiction, PC censored bullshit and sugarcoating read the Daily News.
So a bunch of people who bought a bunch of overpriced condos in LIC are protesting? Who cares, you got conned, if you had that kind of money and a brain, you would have bought a nice house in leafy suburb, endured an extra hour to get to work, but at least not have to deal with the city and its screwed up government.
Honestly I find this funny, and I really do not feel sorry for these suckers. They helped contribute to the congestion.
Queens has been Queens for decades it was never meant to be place for the very rich and the pampered. Get used to being screwed over snowflakes, we deal with this every single day for years.
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