The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has rejected an application to designate landmark status to the historical Hackett Building in Long Island City. Having served as Queens Borough Hall from 1898 to 1916, the building is underway for condominium development. The Commission cited the presence of numerous retail tenants as evidence of the building’s compromise as a historical building....

This piece by the Queens Chronicle advocates for the use of landmark designations to preserve historical neighborhoods in Queens, like Sunnyside Gardens, from the continued growth of commercial and residential real estate development. Citing the borough’s lack of landmarking relative to Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Chronicle argues that landmarks actually preserve neighborhood unity and increase quality...

Tenant advocates argue that poor and middle-income residents of Queens were ignored last month when the City Council revamped 421-A, a tax system that awards tax breaks to developers who build affordable housing units. The Council’s overhaul of the system, seen as a give-away to luxury developers, allows tax breaks to developers in major areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan only if 20% of constructed...

Manhattan’s incredibly low vacancy rate for rental apartments has triggered a number of developers to focus on construction of residential rental apartments. New rental buildings are planned or already under construction in West Chelsea, the Lower East Side, and Long Island City.

MetLife recently renegotiated a deal with the City to relocate more than 1,000 jobs from Long Island City to Manhattan. The insurer will keep a significant force in Queens for the next few years. MetLife made the move to Long Island City in 2001 in a deal that included tax breaks in exchange for an assurance that they would remain in New York City through 2021.

Con Ed has promised to invest $58 million in Long Island City’s electrical infrastructure and to add 250 phone lines to its call centers in the wake of last summer’s blackout. Queens officials have argued that with projected population growth in Long Island City of one million people over the next ten years the utility and the City need ensure that the system is prepared for future heat waves.

Community activists maintain that 5,000 planned affordable units in Queens West development are out of reach for lower-income individuals and families, given that 60% of Queens’ families make less than $60,000 per year. The City, through its Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), disagrees, arguing that the $60,000 to $145,000 per year qualification is the range of income for a...

The Gotham Gazette considers the recent sale of Stuyvesant Town and the City's announced housing development in Long Island City through the prism of two luminaries in the planning community: Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. The Gazette analyzes whether the Jacobs or Moses philosophy is more influential in present day New York.

In an opinion piece, Errol Louis argues that affordable housing advocates are misguided in their assertion that the city’s Queens West project will dislocate and price out the area’s poorest residents. He argues that middle-class housing, like Queens West, with subsidized apartments for families of four, is exactly what the city needs to keep the middle-class from leaving for the suburbs.

Queens residents are concerned that new housing to be developed by the City in Long Island City won’t be affordable to most current residents of the area. The Queens Affordable Housing Coalition says that three out of every five area households could not afford to live in the proposed complex.