HPPC Statement on OneLIC commitments missing from Executive Budget

Hunters Point Parks Conservancy is deeply alarmed that City Hall appears poised to abandon key commitments made to the community as part of the OneLIC rezoning. The Mayor’s executive budget delays critical investments in schools, parks, and public spaces for at least five years, despite Long Island City already struggling to keep pace with explosive growth from the more than 20,000 new housing units built since 2010.

As the largest rezoning in New York City history moves forward, bringing nearly 15,000 additional housing units to our community, including more than 4,000 affordable homes, the City cannot continue asking families to accept overcrowded schools, overburdened parks, and unsafe connections between neighborhoods. Residents in Queensbridge Houses and across Long Island City deserve the infrastructure and public spaces that were promised alongside this unprecedented development.

Delaying improvements to Queensbridge Park, failing to restore Baby Queensbridge Park, and cutting planned public realm investments sends a troubling message: that the needs of existing residents and future families are secondary to rapid development. Our Community Board is third from the bottom in park space per capita, and thousands of new residents will only make that worse. Cutting funding to Queensbridge Parks also deepens existing inequalities in services and public spaces serving public housing residents. 

Long Island City’s schools are failing to meet the demands of families. The Hunters Point and Court Square elementary schools are currently operating over capacity, which will only get worse with required changes to the maximum classroom sizes, and there are not enough school seats to serve the existing population, much less an influx from new housing. We know how long it takes for new schools to be constructed compared to private development, meaning there will not be enough seats to meet demand once more units come online, especially with 3 new schools cut from the budget. 

In order to build a connected community, street safety and public realm improvements are an essential part of the neighborhood rezoning, but the proposed budget cuts or delays improvements to connectivity and the public realm, including new public spaces under the Queensboro Bridge ramps, necessary lighting studies for the IBZ, and improvements on 44th Drive and to the Queens Waterfront Greenway. These cuts and delays keep Queensbridge residents more isolated from other parts of the community, and mean new residents in the 15,000 proposed new units will see significant quality of life and safety issues until these promises are met. 

This plan was only approved by the City Council because it included these essential improvements. After two years of community engagement and public input, walking back these commitments undermines trust in the entire rezoning process and risks leaving one of the fastest-growing communities in the country without the resources it urgently needs just to meet current demand, much less thousands of new apartments.

You can help by telling City Hall to keep its promises to our community at upcoming budget hearings by submitting written testimony (you can find a sample letter and instructions here) or signing up to testify on June 10 (see details here).  

Council Member Julie Won’s office published a list of neighborhood priorities missing from the proposed budget, focusing on parks, schools, and transportation which you can also include in your testimony.