New Floodgates Targeted For College Point

Finishing touches on plans for a new College Point Corporate Park flood control system, located on the old Flushing Airport grounds, are being prepared by the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), The Queens Courier has learned.
The project has also sparked plans for the EDC’s expansion of commercial development on its busy 20th Avenue site, construction of a new $300,000 tidal gate to control wetland flooding and an extension of Linden Place from the Whitestone Expressway through to 20th Avenue.
The plans also end a 35-year battle by Fred Mazzarello, president of the College Point Board of Trade, to regulate the negative impact on businesses and homeowners caused by the ineffective flood controls on the old airport’s flooded wetland areas.
Airport flooding, he recalled, was controlled by airport staffers, who pumped out excess water from nearby drainage ditches into Flushing Creek. When the city’s floodgates failed, he said, a large section of Linden Place has to be shut down.
Starting next spring, the broken tidal gate dam, located between 28th and 31st Avenues in the police car pound, will be replaced by a more efficient flood-control system that zig-zags past a giant post office facility and New York Times printing plant and around the perimeter of the old Flushing Airport’s wetlands.
More efficient water controls will also permit the highly anticipated commercial development of properties on the south side of 20th Avenue between the Whitestone Expressway and 132nd Street in the heart of the highly-developed Corporate Park.
The key project for local residents is the speedy reconstruction of Linden Place starting next fall, which will provide more efficient traffic access to and from College Point, without having to use the very busy 20th Avenue during rush hours. This new access to the city’s expressway system will also improve response time from emergency vehicles.
Victor Ross is a freelance writer.