The city’s plan to transform Willets Point into an entirely new neighborhood with 2,500 new affordable homes, a privately-funded soccer stadium and a 250-room hotel got overwhelming support from participants during a virtual hearing on April 4.
The Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination hosted the session that brought together residents from the surrounding neighborhoods, civic, business and elected leaders and soccer fans who spoke in favor of the project on 17 acres of underused and contaminated city-owned land across Tom Seaver Way from Citi Field.
“New York City is currently facing a severe housing crisis. The transformation of Willets Point will help us build our way out of this crisis” City Councilman Francisco Moya said. “It’s a model that puts housing first and will yield the city’s largest entirely affordable housing development in the past 40 years — in a corner of my neighborhood that has been underserved and left to languish for too long.”
Moya joined Mayor Eric Adams at the Queens Museum last fall to announce the development that is expected to generate $6.1 billion in economic impact over the next 30 years while creating 1,550 permanent jobs and 14,200 construction jobs.
“The entire project will be built with union labor, bringing good jobs and help alleviate the burden of our neighboring schools which are overcapacity,” Moya said. “The completely privately-financed Major League Soccer stadium, the first of its kind in New York, will serve as the economic engine making this entire vision possible — giving Queens a whole new and dynamic community where our fellow New Yorkers can afford to live and where many others will want to visit. It’s the culmination of 13 years of work that will contribute to a legacy we can all be proud of.”
The proposal was first presented in 2018 by the Willets Point Task Force, chaired by Moya; a group of Queens stakeholders represented by state and local elected officials; Community…
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