The Middle Village Residents Association (MVRA) met at Trinity Lutheran Church on Nov. 20 to talk about the recent Interborough Express (IBX) meeting with the MTA, flood mitigation and more.
Led by MVRA President Paul Pogozelski, the meeting featured several guest speakers, including Council Member Bob Holden, Council Member-elect Phil Wong and representatives from both state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr.’s office and U.S. Rep. Grace Meng’s office with plenty of community input that was mostly shouted from varying locations in the pews.
On the topic of IBX, with community concerns of the MTA using eminent domain to build surrounding infrastructure for the train line, Holden mentioned ballot proposals 2 through 4, which passed on the Nov. 4 election. Holden does not approve of the most contentious of the bunch, Prop. 4, which creates a board consisting of the borough president, the mayor and the council speaker that can override a council vote for affordable housing projects.
Worried about a lack of oversight and community input, Holden reminded the crowd of an affordable housing project, at Queens Boulevard and 69th Street, that was pitched the year he took office in 2018, where he used the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) in order to build a new school.
“I said we don’t need housing in my district, everybody’s happy… I don’t want to have too much traffic, and my schools are overcrowded,” Holden said. “At that time, PS 229, where all my kids went, was at 135% [capacity]. ”
According to Holden, he received notice a new 430-seat school would be built in the basement and ground level of the housing project, after his insistence during ULURP, at the “11th hour” while walking up the steps to take the vote. All affordable housing projects will still going through an “expedited” ULURP process, cutting the time of review from seven months to three to address the housing crisis, but Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has yet to comment on when and why Prop. 4’s board will be summoned for a vote to supersede a project’s denial.
Wong, who spoke briefly at Pogozelski’s behest, reiterated his commitments to join the Common Sense Caucus and keep the whole of Holden’s staff, including his opponent in the 2025 election, Alicia Vaichunas, when he asked her to reprise her role the office. A long-time member of the MVRA, who co-led meetings with Pogozelski, Vaichunas attended the meeting only to discuss and listen to local issues of Middle Village, and did not confirm or deny her intent to continue her work as deputy chief of staff for District 30 under Wong. Currently, Vaichunas is operating her catering business and is on paid leave after accruing a wealth of unused vacation days from working in Holden’s office for around eight years.
Among other issues discussed were flood mitigation and the approximately 200 million allocated to the district for both “green” and “grey” protection projects. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will be using the state funds to build both rain gardens (green) and cloudburst technology (grey) projects around the neighborhood, though some community members protest their installation.
“During a heavy rain storm, we’re all watching out for each other to make sure we’re not going to get flooded,” Pogozelski said. “So the rain gardens would actually be welcomed on my block.”
Pogozelski, whose family home sits lower than the street via a communal driveway, reiterated the importance of building the infrastructure as soon as possible. A representative from Meng’s office chimed in to alert the audience that any areas affected by flooding should be reported to her office, to better allocate the funds.
The representative announced Meng is holding weekend office hours on Dec. 13 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at her Forest Hills office located at 118-35 Queens Blvd. and is hosting a recycling event midday in Cunningham Park on Dec. 7 for miscellaneous items such as computer monitors, printers, scanners, keyboards, clothing, shoes and more.
In September, Meng introduced the Quiet Communities Act, which would establish the Office of Noise Abatement and Control in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to better combat noise pollution, which can cause serious health side effects, such as high blood pressure and hearing loss when exposed to over 80 decibels for long periods of time.
Community members raised concerns of noise pollution from the IBX to the MTA, which Meng is hoping to get addressed by contacting the director of the project to ensure studies on its effect in the neighborhood are being done. Addabbo’s office also issued a survey on the IBX to bring concerns to the MTA while the project is still in its infancy stage.
“Get in touch with your elected officials… you have to get in touch with your state assembly member and your state senator, because those are the people that can actually help us into the election year,” said Pogozelski. “If the constituents aren’t happy, that’s where you’re gonna get the most bang for your buck.”
