Recap from November 13th Community Meeting

On Monday November 13th community members from Long Island City and Astoria attended a Justice For All Coalition Community Meeting, held, as always, as the Jacob Riis Center. The goal for this meeting was to break out in to three smaller groups and to get community input with respect to three topics – as a way of continuing to work towards putting together a comprehensive Community Plan.

The three topics include the following:

1. Development Scenarios and Impact on New Affordable Housing
2. Availability and Goals for Development on Public Land
3. Identifying Funding Sources for Public Housing Repairs and Improvements

Please click on each to learn more about the topic, the options discussed and what community members had to say about it.

Lisa Ng opens the meeting with an introduction to the issues.

The evening began with a introductory presentation by JFA Steering Committee member and Queensbridge Houses resident, Lisa Ng, who gave an overview of the issues on the docket for the evening. Here is a quick summary of her presentation:

• LIC is being targeted by the City for a rezoning right now. We can look to a rezoning that occurred in Chelsea that also occured in the vicinity of public housing to see how a rezoning in LIC might effect us. In short, while NYCHA housing costs were not effected, the cost of living (groceries, laundry, etc) went up and caused stress for residents.
• One of the arguments in favor of the rezoning is that it will bring affordable housing to our community. But is this housing affordable for us? 
• There is some public land in LIC, which is land that – as taxpayers – we own. Some of this land, like the TF Cornerstone project on 44th drive (more here), has already been given over to private developers. We need to come up with a plan for what we want to do with the remaining parcels of public land and present those ideas in our Community Land.
• NYCHA is operating on a $65 million deficit right now, while residents are dealing with $17 billion in unmet capital needs (building repairs, etc). How can we channel some of hte money coming into the neighborhood through development to NYCHA?

Below is Lisa’s presentation, where you can view the maps she mentioned during the presentation.

After Lisa’s presentation, we broke out into our smaller groups and heard more about these topics from members of the Pratt Center for Community Development, ANHD and the Urban Justice Center and then engaged in small group discussions about our options and shared our own opinions. Again, to learn more about what each group discussed and to hear how community members responded, follow the links by topic at the top of the page. 

After the small group discussions, we reconvened as one large group for a share back – to inform each other what each group discussed that evening – and had a final evening prayer by Dr. Brown. 

Reminder, our next Community Meeting is Monday December 11th at 7pm at the Jacob Riis Center (10-25 41st Ave). This meeting with have a youth-focus, so please encourage youth you know to come out and join us! We hope to see you there!

[gview file=”http://opencuny.org/ayonyc/files/2017/11/112F13-Presentation.pdf”]