Famed Diner Facing Wrecking Ball After Council Approves Rezoning

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Astorians should prepare to eat their last omelette or slice of spanakopita at a beloved neighborhood diner, which is facing demolition after the City Council approved a disputed rezoning plan.

Last month, the City Council unanimously approved a developer's plan to construct three buildings on the east side of 31st Street between Astoria Boulevard and 24th Avenue — bulldozing Neptune Diner, located at 3105 Astoria Boulevard, and a nearby Staples in the process.

The vote, which was first reported by the Queens post, concludes the project's multi-month, public land use review process, during which community members largely voiced opposition to the three new buildings: Astoria's Community Board 1 rejected the plan by a vote of 25 to four, with four abstentions.

Opposing members said that the project's 11- and 12-story towers are too tall for the area and don't include enough permanently affordable housing — the plan calls for 278 new units, of which 69 percent are deemed affordable under the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Option 1 requirements.

Evie Hantzopoulos, a longtime community leader who ran for City Council, pointed out that this plan offers the "bare minimum of affordable housing that is required by law," adding that some of the so-called affordable units will be priced for higher earners.

For instance, 20 affordable units are set aside for applicants making as much as 80 percent of the area's median income — $85,920 for a family of three.

"The community needs to get more, they need more truly affordable housing and 25 percent does not cut it," she said.

Council Member Tiffany Cabán also said at a candidate forum that the project didn't have enough affordable units, but voted in favor of the development in Dec.

A spokesperson for Cabán told the Queens Post that the project vote came about a week after she came into office, at which point it was "slated for passage and the majority of the [council] body was going to vote for it."

The spokesperson added that before the vote Cabán secured $250,000 from developers to be spent on Hoyt Playground upgrades.

Representatives of the project, however, have long said that MDM could have developed about 200 units of housing at the site — none of them necessarily affordable — if not for the upzoning process.

While some locals weren't convinced by this argument (Hantzopoulos contended that MDM waited to build in order to get tax breaks on the affordable units) others welcomed the project.

Queens Borough President Richards, voted in favor of the rezoning last Oct., but tried to placate neighbors by calling on developers to set up a community advisory board during construction. He also asked the developer to hire 30 percent minority- and women-owned businesses for the build.

At a City Planning Commission public hearing shortly after, some speakers — most of whom reportedly lived outside of Astoria — testified in support of the plan, arguing that the neighborhood would benefit from the additional housing.

One Community Board 1 member who agreed with that perspective is Jeffrey Martin. While he too said that the buildings are out of scale for the neighborhood, he contended that an 11- and 12-story tower with some affordable housing is better than an even taller building with no affordable units.

"[This area] will be developed in some way at some point," he said, adding that "the benefits of the rezoning including more affordable housing, more housing in general."