In an atmosphere of tension punctuated at times with thinly veiled threats from a vocal opposition, Community Board 12 voted last Wednesday, March 21 to approve with modifications two controversial redevelopment projects around the AirTrain terminal in downtown Jamaica currently under public review.
Considered crucial pieces of the Department of City Planning’s (DCP) 368-block Jamaica Plan, the “Sutphin Boulevard Plaza” or “Station Plaza” project that would widen and realign Archer Avenue between 144th Place and 147th Place passed by a vote of 34 to one with four abstentions.
The “Atlantic Avenue Extension” project in which 95th Avenue and 94th Avenue would become one-way roadways into and out of downtown Jamaica through the addition of a new street passed by a vote of 27 to 10 with two abstentions.
The votes came before an agitated capacity audience at the Robert Ross Johnson Family Life Center on Linden Boulevard in St. Albans, where impassioned speeches, angry outbursts and heckling by attendees set the tone.
“As I’ve been sitting at this table and I read [the Draft Environmental Impact Statement] you will see nowhere where it says that this community is going to get anything,” said Ad Hoc Committee member Edith Thomas of the DCP report.
“We are human beings and you better learn to respect us. And I’m going all the way, all the way, because I’ve got names,” she exclaimed.
“…I’m sick and tired of paying for something I do not get,” said another Ad Hoc Committee member, Gertrude S. Gonesh.
Board chairperson Gloria Black took issue with remarks she believed disparaged her fellow board members.
“I have sat here month in and month out under the voices of some of you, and I ‘m not going to take it anymore,” she boomed in response. “You’re messing with the wrong person!”
“Now we have a job to do and we will have to take a vote and we will do it,” she continued. “… Listen to me carefully. If you disrupt this meeting to the point where we cannot do what we have to do, whether it’s negative or positive, I will personally call 9-1-1.”
The statement met loud booing from a few in the audience.
During testimony prior to the vote, Thomas McKnight, vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), for the first time articulated in a public forum the specific measures his agency, in partnership with the Greater Jamaica Economic Development Corporation (GJDC), would take to address community concerns about the project.
Some of the measures, outlined in a letter from EDC president Robert C. Lieber and GJDC president F. Carlisle Towery to the community board and dated March 16, included:
Additional agreements included:
“I think we accomplished something in the long run that will benefit the southeast Queens community,” Black said in a phone interview following the meeting. Black clarified that the letter’s initial guarantees had been painted in broad strokes that would require significant fine-tuning before the Community Board would present its decision to Queens Borough President Helen Marshall for review.
“Nothing will even be forwarded until we get all the pieces into place that will protect the owners [being displaced] and until the community advisory board is in place to monitor the beginning to end of the project,” she continued.
Edith Thomas remained skeptical. “I’m not certain any of the benefit is going to accrue to the community,” she said.
“We do intend to fight it at every level. It’s not over,” Thomas said.
