At Queens CB2 meeting, residents denounce Sunnyside Yard

Almost two hours into the September 4th meeting of Queens Community Board 2, Arthur Tarley, who calls himself a “son of Queens,” stepped up to the microphone during the public comment period to denounce plans for the Sunnyside Yards development.

“The working people, tenants, and frontline communities can’t afford a Sunnyside Yards development,” he said.

The proposal is a plan to construct a deck over the 180-acre railyard in Sunnyside, creating new land for developers on which to build. The long-rumored proposal took a step toward reality in 2017, when New York City released a feasibility study showing that most of the yard could be decked over and built upon without disrupting rail operations.

The community planning process for the yard started in Summer 2018, according to the proposal’s website, and is expected to last about 18 months. But among attendees of the Community Board meeting, sentiment toward the proposal was universally negative.

“I really don’t think anyone in Queens is hot for Sunnyside Yards development,” said Patricia Dorfman, who attended the meeting. Dorfman said that 15 years ago, she started a group to oppose a similar, since-abandoned Sunnyside Yards proposal, and gathered more than 2000 signatures.

Overall, five speakers during public comment expressly opposed the development. Nobody spoke in favor.

The feasibility study, which represented a major step toward breaking ground for a project that long existed as nothing more than an intriguing possibility, was conducted jointly by New York City and Amtrak. But Emily Sharpe, who spoke after Tarley and is also the founder of the Coalition to Stop Sunnyside Yards, said the development wasn’t what Queens wanted or needed.

“We don’t really have any control over it as a public,” Sharpe said when reached after the meeting. “We want to use our money for us, not to build some fantasy.”

Like Sharpe, Dorfman called the development “a fantasy,” and said that “it brings out people’s Oedipus complexes.”

In his speech, Tarley also criticized the Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) tactics in trying to gain support for the proposed development. He said that the EDC, which is running the planning process in conjunction with Amtrak, touted endorsements from various elected officials on its website — but that some had said after being listed that they did not support the project, or that they had never been asked before being listed.

The plan’s website, sunnysideyard.nyc, lists eight elected officials on its steering committee: Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senator Michael Gianaris, State Assembly member Catherine Nolan, City Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. Spokespeople from their offices confirmed that Ocasio-Cortez and Maloney were on the steering committee. A spokesman for Van Bramer, meanwhile, sent The Blueprint a statement from the council member.

“I am not a member of EDC’s planning team,” Van Bramer said, according to the statement, “and never agreed to be listed along with Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Michael Gianaris on their website.”

The remaining elected officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment. An EDC spokesperson likewise ignored requests for comment.

Vanessa Carreras, who attended the community board meeting, said at a “Stop Sunnyside Yards” trivia event days later that the plan had the wrong priorities.

“It’s really being pushed for short-term profit,” she said. Carreras said she disagreed with this mindset, and that she was not necessarily opposed to decking over the yard if the new land was used for something that would benefit the community, like a park. Unfortunately, she said, because such a project might pay off in the long term but would not in the short term, she did not see any path to a compromise.

But while the audience at the community board meeting seemed almost universally opposed to the proposed development, some Queens residents support it. Casey Berkowitz, a Woodside resident, said that the housing in the proposed development, which according to the feasibility study could be as many as 24,000 new units, would benefit all New Yorkers.

“The economics is pretty clear,” he said. “More supply at relatively working-class income levels will bring prices down across the city.”

Tarley, in stark contrast, called the proposal “a project of hypergentrification.”

Berkowitz said that ideally, the development would consist of “dense housing with parks in between.” According to the feasibility study, the development would include about 0.97 acres of open space per 1000 residents, which the study says is below the recommended 1.25 but “equal to or above what is provided by other large-scale developments in New York City.” Berkowitz said that like many who oppose the project, he supported increased affordable housing. However, he said, many opponents of the plan have not kept open minds, even with key details still yet to be decided.

“There are a lot of people who, before any of that gets decided on, are saying they’re opposed to the project,” he said.

Some critics cited other concerns. Mitch Waxman, an Astoria resident who attended the “Stop Sunnyside Yards” trivia event, said that construction costs would be massive. Sunnyside Yards is often compared to Hudson Yards, a Manhattan development similarly built over a rail yard. But Sunnyside Yard is about seven times larger than Hudson Yards. Waxman said this wasn’t the only problem. While the train tracks over which Hudson Yards was built run tidily in straight lines, he said, Sunnyside Yards is the opposite: the tracks cross each other and do not run straight. He said this made for much more complicated and expensive construction.

“It’s inviting your partner out to dinner — and her mother,” he said. “You just increased the bill by a lot.”

Berkowitz said that he couldn’t tell how many people supported the project, compared to those that opposed it. However, he said, “The loudest voices oppose the project.”

Meanwhile, Alex Sharpe, husband of Stop Sunnyside Yards founder Emily, felt differently.

“I’m optimistic that if people open their eyes and see what’s going on, I think there will be enough support to stop this,” he said. “If everyone in the surrounding neighborhoods knows the facts, I would say there would be a majority opposed to it.”