Astoria's 3-Tower Halletts North Rezoning Advances To City Council

ASTORIA, QUEENS — The big Halletts North development that could reshape a desolate corner of Astoria was approved by the City Planning Commission this week, overcoming fears of gentrification — and setting up a final vote in the City Council that will test the neighborhood's new representative.

Monday's 8-1 vote by the commission was the latest step forward for the ambitious project. First unveiled more than a year ago, it would build three high-rise towers containing a combined 1,340 apartments on what is now an empty, formerly-polluted lot on the Halletts Point peninsula.

Of the apartments, 335 will be permanently affordable. The surrounding waterfront will also be transformed into a one-acre open space along the East River, according to the project's developers — identified only as "Astoria Owners LLC."

Halletts North had previously gotten a thumbs-up from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, and was narrowly approved by Community Board 1 in a non-binding vote this spring.

"In addition to delivering a significant amount of housing to help address our obvious crisis here, the project creates really important waterfront open space and expands the access around this entire area," City Planning chair Dan Garodnick said Monday after voting to approve the rezoning.

Now, the project — which requires a few zoning changes to allow for taller and denser buildings, public open space, and a switch from manufacturing to residential use — will head to the City Council, where it faces a final approval vote in the coming weeks.

That may be a test for Astoria City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, whose fellow lawmakers will likely defer to her wishes when voting on the project. Halletts North will be the biggest rezoning to reach the Council so far during Cabán's term, though she previously voted to approve a smaller project on 31st Street that will replace the Neptune Diner with an 11-story building.

A spokesperson for Cabán declined to comment on Halletts North on Tuesday.

"It facilitates gentrification"

Monday's City Planning vote came after a brief presentation laying out the changes that developers made to Halletts North since it was first proposed. Those included spacing out the towers to allow for more sunlight, enlarging the public space, and adding a new public overlook platform that will stretch above the East River.

Spanning 986,000 square feet in total, Halletts North's towers will stand 23, 31 and 34 stories tall — with the tallest tower reaching 348 feet in height.

It will also include 1,800 square feet of commercial space and a 21,500-square-foot community facility — to be rented out to local nonprofits like Urban Upbound. Developers will also build 525 parking spaces each for cars and bikes. The affordable units will be available to renters making as little as 60 percent of the area median income — or about $56,000 for one person — and will cost as little as $756 per month, developers have said.

Those figures have been a sticking point to those opposed to the project, which included Leah Goodridge — the sole member of the City Planning Commission to vote against the rezoning Monday. Goodridge said she feared Halletts North would contribute to Astoria's gentrification and be unaffordable to nearby residents.

"We have 1,400 units, only 350 of them will be permanently affordable, which I don’t think is that many," she said. "I do believe that secondary displacement is real, I do believe that it facilitates gentrification, and this is one of those projects where it can happen."

Similar concerns were raised by Community Board 1 members who voted against Halletts North in April — some of whom noted that the upscale towers would be built steps away from the low-income NYCHA Astoria Houses.

Halletts North is not to be confused with two separate, already-approved projects that will also help reshape the same peninsula: the Durst Organization's seven-building Halletts Point development and the four-building Astoria Cove project a few blocks east, which are in various stages of construction after years of delays.

To guard against the effects of climate change, Halletts North will entail raising the peninsula's coastline by about nine feet. If the rezoning were not approved, architect Jay Valgora has said the owners would likely develop the site into a last-mile warehouse akin to an Amazon distribution center, since the existing zoning allows for only industrial use.

The lot, on the north side of Halletts Point, was vacant and heavily polluted from its former life as a steel plant before developers purchased it in 2013 and spent $16 million over five years to clean it up.

Related coverage:

• Astoria's 3-Tower Halletts North Project Gets Borough President's OK
  
• SEE: Plans Revealed For 'Halletts North' Development In Astoria
• Astoria's Huge Halletts Point Development Inches Forward, Plans Show
• Huge Astoria Cove Development Stirs To Life After Yearslong Delay