Special Flushing Waterfront District Project background
The Special Flushing Waterfront District (SFWD), a 29-acre development proposal for the Flushing Creek waterfront, has been decades in the making.
In December 2019, the Flushing Willets Point — Corona Local Development Corporation (LDC) began the 7-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) for the Special Flushing Waterfront District. Despite robust community and citywide opposition, the Department of City Planning (DCP) and the NYC City Council approved a 29-acre special district proposal on the eastern shore of Flushing Creek in December 2020.
The special district enables an entirely private shoreline development with 13 towers, 1,725 luxury condos, and 61 affordable housing units, a foreboding distribution for a neighborhood whose Average Median Income falls below the City’s average. The City’s current Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy states that developers are required to include affordable housing in areas that are rezoned. Because the SFWD only requires a rezoning for a small parcel of the district (rezoning of a manufacturing zone to a mixed-use zone), only that parcel requires affordable housing.
SFWD timeline
2015-2016
The city proposed the Flushing West rezoning. The Flushing Rezoning Community Alliance formed and developed an advocacy white paper, ‘Recommendations for a Just Rezoning’. The Department of City Planning withdrew the proposal the following year, after Council Member Peter Koo and others cited concerns that tall buildings impinged on flight paths to LaGuardia Airport.
June, 2018
NY state approved the Flushing Willets Point Corona LDC’s application for a Flushing Creek Brownfield Opportunity Area grant, which would fund remediation planning and design on the Flushing Creek waterfront led by the Department of City Planning.
December, 2019
Aided by DCP’s planning process, a team of developers submitted an application for the Special Flushing Waterfront District, which starts the land use review process. The project is a pared down version of Flushing West, minus community benefits. It includes 13 towers with 1,725 units of market rate housing and 61 units of required affordable housing. The proposal would destroy a 2-acre forest, impacting the wetlands on the opposite shore.
The Flushing for Equitable Development and Urban Planning (FED UP) Coalition forms.
January, 2020
March 12, 2020
After a series of contentious meetings with large scale community opposition, Community Board 7 votes YES.
February 10, 2020
June 8, 2020
FED UP sues the Department of City Planning and the City Planning Commission.
November 4, 2020
City Council and Council Member Peter Koo vote YES.
December 10, 2020
December, 2020
FED UP leads the Flushing Creek For All campaign to bring attention to the impact of SFWD on the creek. The campaign continues to advocate against the Department of Conservation permits for the project.
Project Approved.
February 2021 - Present