Green, who took the No. 7 train to…
By Chris Fuchs
Asian-American business leaders led Public Advocate Mark Green, one of four Democratic mayoral candidates, through downtown Flushing Tuesday afternoon, discussing ways of improving the bustling commercial district.
Green, who took the No. 7 train to Main Street in Flushing, arrived around 1:40 p.m. and shook hands with members of the Asian-American community, including Wellington Chen, a consultant for a firm with plans to develop downtown Flushing.
The group emerged from the station, walking west on Roosevelt Avenue past Main Street. “This is an abandoned, dilapidated area,” Chen told Green, as they stood among a motley assortment of restaurants. Green said that in general, the city has to make a “bottom-up re-evaluation” of the zoning code.
The group then walked to Prince Street, near 39th Avenue, where the firm for which Chen consults, FultonEx, is building a mixed-use commercial facility, a prototype for future development in downtown Flushing, Chen said. He said the confluence of bus and train lines in downtown Flushing makes it ripe for such development.
But Green seemed to be caught off guard when Chen raised the issue of a waste transfer station that began operating in Willets Point March 12, saying he was unaware of the controversy surrounding it. The station, one of 15 under city contract, is part of a network to haul the city’s garbage to out-of-state landfills with the closing of the state’s last landfill, Fresh Kills in Staten Island.
Over the last month, members of the Asian-American community in downtown Flushing have protested the construction of the station, saying it will bring down property values and pollute the district.
“I support the idea that waste transfer stations should be expanded,” Green said, referring to the plan that each borough is to store its trash before shipping it out of state.
Green was also unfamiliar with a proposal of the Queens borough president’s, in which she is seeking to have Willets Point declared an urban renewal area. The plan would allow the city to change the zoning of the 55-acre tract, across from Shea Stadium, from heavy-industry to commercial. If it is so designated, the land could be used to develop a stadium or convention center, said Claire Shulman, the borough president.
Green, however, said he would not comment since he did not know the details of the plan.
Later on in the afternoon, Green stopped at a bank on Main Street and then ate lunch with the business leaders at a Chinese restaurant, across the street from the Flushing Library. After that, he was scheduled to take a tour of the library at Main Street and Kissena Boulevard.
Reach reporter Chris Fuchs by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
