Won Still Against Innovation QNS As BP Blasts 'Weirdo' Opponents

ASTORIA, QUEENS — City Councilmember Julie Won is urging colleagues to oppose Astoria's huge Innovation QNS development unless its affordability levels are raised even further, putting its fate in question as the five-block proposal heads for a final vote this fall.

Won made the request in an email to fellow Council members on Thursday, which was obtained by Patch on Friday after first being reported by POLITICO.

"Approving this rezoning with minimal affordability would result in displacement, rising rents, and amplify infrastructure challenges," she wrote. "It would also send a message to our communities that the Council will work around them and their representatives for the profit of large real estate interests."

Won had been publicly silent about the rezoning since last month, when developers announced they would increase the number of affordable apartments from 25 to 40 percent, from its total of 2,800 units — bringing it closer to meeting the 50-percent-affordable threshold that both Won and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards had said would be needed to win their support.

In a statement hours after her email leaked on Friday, Won said she had upped her baseline even further, now saying she would oppose Innovation QNS unless 55 percent of units were made affordable.

"As Council Member, it is my duty to advocate on behalf of my constituents–and my constituents demand more affordable housing," Won said.

Richards, meanwhile, came out in support of Innovation QNS after the number of affordable units was increased, and the borough president seemed to publicly question Won's continued opposition in a series of tweets on Friday.

"You weirdos don’t know and never built affordable housing," Richards said in one tweet directed at an opponent of Innovation QNS.

The Council has until Nov. 21 to vote on Innovation QNS, which would construct more than 12 new buildings and two acres of green space between 37th Street and Northern Boulevard, north of 36th Avenue. Won's colleagues have been expected to fall in line behind her under the informal policy of "member deference" — though that tradition has shown signs of waning.

In a list of reasons for opposing Innovation QNS, Won repeated a frequent claim that the developers had not done enough to engage nearby residents, also arguing that the project had no plan to address "transportation and flood mitigation needs."

She also knocked the developers for relying on city subsidies to pay for a fraction of the affordable units — a critique that some observers found puzzling, since developments often use city funds when they exceed the city's bare-minimum number of affordable units.

In her statement Friday afternoon, Won said the developers would need to make 40 percent of units affordable through its own funding, then use city subsidies for another 15 percent, in order to win her vote.

"If the developers cannot meet my community’s needs at this time, I am willing to work with them in the future, in partnership with local residents and the city, as part of a community-led Neighborhood Rezoning," she said.

In the email, Won asked colleagues to tune into a Zoom meeting on Oct. 21, which she said would lay out "key problems" with the development.

Besides increasing the number of affordable units, developers last month also deepened those units' affordability, setting aside 500 apartments for people making 30 percent of the area median income — or about $28,000 for a single person.

If built, it would more than triple the number of affordable homes created in Astoria in recent years, according to the developers: a joint team of Silverstein Properties, Kaufman Astoria Studios and BedRock Real Estate Partners.

"Rejecting Innovation QNS' 1,100 affordable homes would severely worsen the gentrification and displacement that has been underway for years in Queens Community Board 1 – where just 102 deeply affordable homes and 475 affordable homes total have been added since 2014 – and that can only be stopped by building vastly more housing," said Sam Goldstein, a spokesperson for Innovation QNS, in a statement on Friday.

"We remain committed to working to earn the City Council’s support," he added.

Innovation QNS would cover five low-rise blocks now home to auto repair shops, a P.C. Richard store, and the Regal UA Kaufman Astoria movie theater, which would be rebuilt on a new block as part of the development

Supporters have said it would help alleviate the city's housing crisis and enliven the neighborhood with new retail and recreational space, while opponents have long charged that the project would indirectly displace longtime residents and be unaffordable for the people who already live in Astoria.

Related coverage:

• Innovation QNS Increases Affordable Apartments In Bid For Approval
  
• Innovation QNS Rezoning OK'd By Planning Commission, Heads To Council
• Huge Innovation QNS Rezoning Gets Thumbs-Down From Borough President
• Huge Innovation QNS Rezoning Rejected By Board, But Battle Continues
• Despite Changes, Innovation QNS Voted Down By Astoria Board Committee
• Astoria's Innovation QNS Opponents, Supporters Clash At Public Hearing