Even after Gov. Cuomo opposed de Blasio’s idea to build affordable housing over the Sunnyside Yard, the NYC mayor continues to remain optimistic that they will come to a compromise in the near future.
Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a proposal to build a Stuyvesant Town-sized development on a railyard in Queens. This construction would resemble the Peter Cooper Village located on the east side of Manhattan.
“I think we’re going to find a way forward here,” the mayor told WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer on Wednesday morning.
Unfortunately, Gov. Cuomo controls the Amtrak and M.T.A, who owns Sunnyside Yard.
“If they have other things they think are a priority on that site, there’s plenty of room on that site,” said de Blasio. “Two hundred acres is an extraordinary amount of room.”
De Blasio proposed they create a platform over Sunnyside Yards and build 11,250 “affordable” apartments on top of that platform, as stated in his second State of the City speech. He is aiming to produce 80,000 units of affordable housing by 2024.
Shortly after his speech ended, Gov. Cuomo signaled his disapproval. “If we could make it work—affordable housing would always be great, but I think short-term, we need it for a train yard,” Gov. Cuomo told NY1’s Pat Kiernan. “Long-term, we need to do more study.”
“Sunnyside Yards, specifically, is problematic,” he said, and building a platform over it to facilitate development would be a “very expensive form of construction.”
The M.T.A. also voiced their concern, arguing that a platform construction over the yards would impede with construction of the East Side Access, a multi-billion dollar project that would connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal. This project is expected to be completed in the mid-2020s. It would also disrupt their plans to reconfigure the Harold Interlocking, the nation’s busiest rail intersection.
“The M.T.A. uses Sunnyside Yards as an important facility for our transportation system, and it is not available for any other use in the near term,” said his spokeswoman, Melissa DeRosa, in a statement emailed to reporters after the speech. “The State and the M.T.A. are studying several potential future uses of the site from a long term planning perspective.”
Gov. Cuomo also made an appearance on NY1 where he stated he preferred an alternative plan to create a convention center on top of the Sunnyside Yard instead, among other ideas. This idea was initially proposed by Dan Doctoroff, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s economic development adviser.
Although M.T.A. and Gov. Cuomo disapprove of de Blasio’s proposal, Amtrak supports the idea. Tony Coscia, the chairman, suggested a similar real estate development in October.
The mayor said that Amtrak, “which obviously plays a crucial role at Sunnyside Yards, has responded very positively to the notion of the right kind of development and that it can be accommodated around the work of the railyards.”
There are also discrepancies about who owns what. The governor is under the impression that the yards is 160 acres, M.T.A. owning 34. However, de Blasio says the area consists of 200 acres, Amtrak owning 113 and M.T.A. owning 66 acres. The city owns 44 acres and 23 acres belong to private owners.
Wiley Norvell, a de Blasio spokesman, stated that there will be detailed research done on who owns what portions of the Sunnyside Yard.
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