City Council Approves Plan That Could Bring 14,700 Homes to Queens

The New York City Council unanimously approved a rezoning on Wednesday that could transform an industrial stretch of Queens into thousands of apartments — private development aimed at addressing the city’s affordable housing crisis.

The vote comes a little over a week after the mayoral election, in which housing was a top issue for voters and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani cruised to victory on a platform of affordability.

Under the plan, developers could build nearly 15,000 apartments within 54 blocks of Long Island City that are currently filled with warehouses and parking lots. Seven years ago, left-leaning politicians opposed a plan that would have given incentives to Amazon to build a headquarters in the same neighborhood.

The new plan, with its focus on housing and community amenities instead of huge public subsidies for a wealthy company like Amazon, has earned the support of the local councilwoman, Julie Won, and other politicians who did not want the headquarters.

The proposal includes nearly hundreds of millions of dollars for parks, public housing, schools, sewers and more. About 30 percent of the housing must be affordable to people of lower or moderate incomes.

“We are fully aware that New York City is in an affordable housing crisis and a housing crisis at large,” Ms. Won said on Wednesday. “Long Island City — we will continue to be a leader in the production of new housing.”

Mr. Mamdani, whose assembly district includes parts of the rezoning area, said in a statement on Wednesday that the plan was a “victory for Long Island City residents.”

City officials have increasingly come to see neighborhood-specific development proposals as valuable ways to confront a housing shortage that is at its worst point in nearly 60 years. The city has approved plans in Midtown Manhattan, the east Bronx, Jamaica in Queens, SoHo in Manhattan and Gowanus in Brooklyn in recent years.

Few parts of New York reflect its housing conundrum as vividly as Long Island City.

The neighborhood’s proximity to Manhattan office buildings and access to several subway lines have made it a hotbed of luxury development and a symbol of gentrification. Some 28,000 homes have been built in the surrounding area over the past decade and a half, according to the Department of City Planning. The typical asking rent is more than $4,500 a month.

Still, many of the blocks in the rezoning area have remained cut off from residential development because they are zoned for manufacturing uses, a relic of the neighborhood’s industrial past.

Those blocks have long been an alluring site for development; there have been at least five failed attempts to build on portions of the area since 2015, including the Amazon deal.

The new proposal’s approval on Wednesday represents a shift in the political calculus.

“The approval of this plan opens the door for more New Yorkers of all income levels to live and work here — and to benefit from new open space and community investments,” said Dan Garodnick, the chair of the City Planning Commission and the director of the Planning Department, which helped shape the plan.

Despite the supportive comments of Ms. Won, Mr. Mamdani and other left-leaning politicians, the plan still generated opposition from community members.

Organizers with the Western Queens Community Land Trust, which advocates neighborhood ownership of property, had urged Ms. Won to vote against the proposal, citing worries about gentrification and affordability.

Jenny Dubnau, co-chair of the trust’s board, said “crucial community needs” seemed to be an “afterthought,” negotiated only at the end.

“We wish the plan had been focused from the get-go on true infrastructure and affordability needs, driven by data and community input — rather than originating as a rezoning,” she said.