Affordable Housing In Hunters Point S. Sought
Waiting lists for public housing are 10 years long; thus, housing for those currently in the $20-40,000 range is necessary...
BY THOMAS COGAN

At the third meeting about the proposed Hunters Point South residential construction project, the topic of affordability took up nearly the entire evening. The late May meeting, held, like the one in April, in the auditorium of the Citibank at 2 Court Square, was a forum for speakers from Queens Community House, the Queens Coalition for Affordable Housing, Habitat for Humanity and church groups such as Catholic Charities, which upon entering the auditorium mounted signs pledging its dedication to affordability, just as the other groups made their interest plain by bringing troops of persons to the microphone. The evening's moderator, Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley, remarked near the end of the meeting that few Long Island City residents turned out (one or two who did replied that notification of the meeting bordered on secretive) to contribute the middle class voice to the discussion, but he welcomed all who were there and encouraged them to attend future meetings.

The first speaker coming from the audience to the microphone was Alicia Vinzareta of Queens Community House in Jackson Heights. She said she wanted to "touch the hearts" of those responsible for the housing project, apparently to make them realize that there are many people out there with dire housing needs- her and her husband, for instance. She said he has a disability and they may be forced to leave their current apartment. Waiting lists for public housing are 10 years long; thus, housing for those currently in the $20- 40,000 range is necessary, she said. Hannah Weinstock of Community House, a community organizer, said that in the Woodside-Sunnyside area, 17 percent of the residents make $17,000 or less. Making note of the fact that the so-called Site A of the project, taking up 30 acres on which 5,000 housing units would be built, had been purchased by the city from the Queens West interests, Weinstock said, "Public land should be for the public." She said a graduated plan should be made so that half those units would be for people making up to but not above $50,000. She said Queens Community House found the Hunters Point South plan laudatory, but: "We don't want to be just looking at it." Winifred Burke, a parishioner at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church on Newtown Avenue, said she is a lifetime Astoria resident who is witnessing the passing of affordability as her hometown becomes more and more crowded out by developers. She called for 20 percent of the Site A houses to be affordable. John Furlong of Habitat for Humanity said he makes home visits to Queens residents living under economic stress and finds appallingly crowded conditions. Like Weinstock, he called for half the housing at Hunters Point South to be classified as affordable, though he set the earnings limit not at $50,000 but $48,000 instead. Margaret Chen of the Queens Affordable Housing Coalition said that her group refurbishes run-down housing in the borough and cited what happened when a 52- unit project was improved and presented for rental to low-income residents: 10,000 applications came in. She said that a project built on publicly purchased land had better make a significant part of it affordable, given an obviously grave housing situation.

Ruthanne Visnauskas, assistant commissioner, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and Tracy Sayegh, assistant vice president, development at the city Economic Development Corporation, again attended the presentation. They spoke about the plight of the middle class, referring to a Brookings Institution report that said New York City was leading the trend toward the disappearance of middle class neighborhoods. Hunters Point South, they contended, was an effort to construct a middle class neighborhood and include working class apartments also. Even the private Site B, the seven-acre plot just north of Site A, is anticipated as building 330 apartments for low-income earners, which would be more than 20 percent of the 1,500 units expected to be built there. The plan is to make a 501(c)3 entity of Site A to handle the build-out and management of the residential buildings. That would entail issuance of tax-exempt bonds and the assurance of long-term affordability. Sayegh said the onsite school would be a 180,000-squarefoot unit for grades six through 12- a combination middle and high school.

Separating the buildings from the East River would be an 11-acre riverfront park that would in effect link to Gantry State Park at the Queens West site. Conley expressed delight at the prospect of such a park, calling it especially welcome in an area so deficient in parkland. Though the matters of living quarters and park facilities for middle- and working-class tenants was thus addressed, the matter of transportation for the populace of Hunters Point continues to give pause. Hunters Point has been hailed as "transit rich", but under the circumstances, Hunters Point South seems a long way south. An extension of the Q103 bus route might be the beginning of improvement, Sayegh said.

There would be a June Hunters Point South meeting, Conley said, perhaps as part of the Community Board 2 meeting on Thursday, June 5, perhaps separately.