After the historic passage of the OneLIC rezoning, spearheaded by Council Member Julie Won and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to double the budget of NYC Parks, a group of parks advocates from around Queens braved the freezing temperatures on Jan. 24 to visit several parks around Long Island City to discuss it serious lack of greenspace compared to other districts.
“We will continue to invest in our green spaces because it is the livelihood of our community.. and we’re going to continue to work with our newest Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to make sure that all of the parks funding that was allotted to clearing out underneath the Queensboro Bridge for the restoration of the park… so it can be somewhere where we can have fun and enjoy the summer,” Won said.
Hosted by Won, New Yorkers for Parks (NY4P) and the Fair Play Coalition, over a dozen advocates met underneath the Queensboro Bridge on Jan. 24 at the site of The Baseline, a 17,000-square-foot DOT lot-to-park conversion in Court Square, before visiting several other local greenspaces including Dutch Kills Green, Queensbridge Baby and Queensbridge Park.
Representatives of Borough President Donovan Richards, Sen. Kristen Gonzalez and Rep. Nydia Velázquez also joined the tour to show their support.
The OneLIC rezoning will invest $2 billion back into the community and allocates about 15 acres of new public space to accompany the nearly 15,000 new housing units. Willis Elkins, an advocate from the Newtown Creek Alliance, hopes that OneLIC and NYC Parks will follow through on their project restoring, revealing and revitalizing Newtown Creek: the most polluted waterway within the city.
“I think having like a variety of different kinds of open space is also very valuable,” Elkins said. “Because there’s so many people that are not just like living here, but also working, going to school, [engaged with] community groups. Creating some of those public spaces along Dutch Kills would be a huge, huge improvement. There’s a lot of appetite to finally get access to that.”
Elkins cited the Dutch Kills loop, a project that has already raised about $17,000 that would transform the sides of the waterway and add plenty of new greenspace, as the most important project the Alliance hopes is included with OneLIC.
During her remarks, Won noted several other projects already funded or in the works, such as the addition of a new dog park at Murray Park and $12 million dedicated to building a walking track at Queensbridge Park for seniors. According to a NY4P report, Queens Community District 2 ranked 57 out of 59 for available parkland.
The non-profits and Won will continue to host these “Walk & Talks” as a part of a series bringing attention to the district’s lack of greenspace, and to ensure that the new rezoning and affordable housing developments are “matched with a neighborhood-wide open space strategy.”
