Three years ago, the city downzoned Richmond Hill, a working and middle-class area filled with one- and two-family homes just south of the Jamaica rail yards in eastern Queens. But they upzoned a commercial corridor on 101st Avenue, and one developer has decided to stake a claim there by filing plans for five small apartment buildings.
As the de Blasio administration walks back its plan to redevelop the auto shops and junkyards in Willets Point, community groups next door in Flushing are fighting their own battle over the city’s plan to upzone a short, heavily polluted swath of industrial waterfront near the end of the 7 train.
The Chinese community in Flushing is quickly growing beyond the borders of its little downtown and building large mixed-use buildings on the suburban edges of the Queens neighborhood. Developers looking for property have pushed east along Northern Boulevard into Murray Hill, where one builder has filed plans for a 15-story building at 35-08 146th Street.
Back in March, Brownstoner Queens discovered initial renderings for a large mixed-use project planned at 3-50 St. Nicholas Avenue in Ridgewood, right next to the Bushwick border. Yesterday, plans were filed to build the 17-story development between Palmetto and Woodbine Streets.
While the city could decide to ban hotels from manufacturing zones, developers have only pushed forward with their plans to build them, even in fairly remote parts of the outer boroughs. Yesterday, new building applications were filed for an eight-story hotel at 38-04 11th Street, at the northern edge of Long Island City. And YIMBY has the reveal for the project, which will replace an auto shop on the corner of 38th Avenue.
