What State of City address means to Queens

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently delivered his State of the City address with the theme of “taking the next step,” he talked about a number of issues where the city made strides as well as a number that will affect Queens residents this year and in the future.
During his address, Bloomberg spoke about providing nearly $1 billion in tax relief to city residents, saying that he would propose a 5 percent lower property tax rate for one year, which calculates to nearly $750 million in savings.
However, Bloomberg also said that he plans to ask the state to continue the $400 property tax rebate, increase incentives to small businesses to get them to come and keep them in the city and eliminate the city’s portion of the sales tax on clothes and footwear.
“This is a broad-based package of tax cuts, designed to pump money back into our neighborhoods, create jobs, lower the burden on property owners and make New York an even more attractive place to live,” Bloomberg said during his address.
In addition to financial responsibility, Bloomberg vowed continued progress on education reform emphasizing four specific areas to focus on for the coming year. The mayor spoke about giving school principals more decision-making authority for their school, reevaluating the tenure process for teachers, allocating funds to schools in a fair way as well as holding schools publicly accountable by allowing everyone to see grades for each school given by an independent panel.
“All four of these reforms have this in common, they’re about empowering school leaders, and then holding them accountable,” Bloomberg said. “That’s the only way we can ensure that the investment we make produce the results we all want.”
On the economic development front, Bloomberg mentioned two Queens projects that he expects to have major effects on neighborhoods, the rezoning of Jamaica and transformation of Willets Point.
Currently, City Planning is engaged in dialogue with a number of local Queens representatives and community board members about their rezoning plans for Jamaica. Some community representatives are concerned that the rezoning leaves too much room for overdevelopment, but the actual rezoning plan has not come before the community boards for approval yet.
In addition, the city has received their requests for proposals for the development of the Willets Point site, and an announcement is expected sometime this year about that project as well.