Plans to develop Sunnyside yards on track again

Plans to develop the Sunnyside yards may be back on track again.
Published reports sprung up this week about the city's possible interest in plans to add a platform above the train tracks at the Sunnyside rail yards and develop a project similar to the one proposed for Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, potentially creating tens of thousands of new housing units for Queens.
According to published reports, development plans designed by the architecture firm Alex Garvin and Associates were given to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff during the summer.
A representative for Alex Garvin and Associates said he could not comment on the story and referred calls to the city's economic development office.
The plans prepared by Alex Garvin and Associates said that developing the site could &#8220create an entirely new neighborhood with tens of thousands of new apartments, knit together long-separated communities, eliminate the noise and blight of an exposed rail yard, and provide a transportation hub for anyone traveling to or from Queens and Long Island. This opportunity is so significant that it is worth pursuing now.”
However, this is not the first time plans to redevelop the areas have been discussed.
&#8220I have seen plans that go back to the 1930's, and one day it will happen,” said Community Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley. &#8220But today is not the day.”
Conley said that there were too many economic questions for the area that still need to be answered, and he said that the distraction of talking about possible plans for the Sunnyside Yards takes away from the development plans currently underway in Long Island City and Hunters Point.
City Councilmember Eric Gioia, who represents the Sunnyside area and has been a proponent for developing the Sunnyside rail yards since he was elected to office five years ago, said that the potential for more than 30,000 additional apartments is enticing for the area.
&#8220First, more needs to be done for the middle class,” Gioia said. &#8220I speak to young families and long-time residents every day who are being pushed out of Queens and New York City altogether because they can't afford it anymore and that needs to stop.”
According to the report, the development would connect Sunnyside Yards with the neighborhoods of Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside and Long Island City. It would be only one stop from either the east side or west side of Midtown Manhattan by subway or LIRR respectively; and it would embody the urban design principles that have made Rockefeller Center and Battery Park City so successful.
However, Gioia and Assemblymember Cathy Nolan both agreed that any plans the city is considering for the site needs to have more community input.
&#8220That any development is being explored without community input is most regrettable,” Nolan wrote in a letter to Doctoroff. &#8220Any development envisioned for the Yards, either with or without a deck, must involve a dialogue with the impacted neighborhoods.”
&#8220I think it's very important that this not just be a plan that looks good in the board room, but the mayor come out to the neighborhood and discuss it with people like my family who know the area the best,” said Gioia, whose family has been living in the neighborhood for more than 100 years.