CB 7 kicks off soccer arena ULURP talks Parking deal with Mets still not done; Apelian still pushing precinct

by Ariella Kissin Chronicle Contributor

Community Board 7 took a meaningful first step toward approving the Universal Land Use Review Procedure for the second phase of the Willets Point Redevelopment Project — which includes a 25,000-seat soccer stadium for the New York City Football Club, 1,400 units of affordable housing, a 250-key hotel and plenty of open space — as its Land Use Committee held its first meeting on the matter last Wednesday night.

But as board members raised concerns about public safety, parking and traffic in response to NYCFC’s proposal, it became clear that there is still a long road ahead.

Daniel White, a senior account executive at Geto and de Milly, the lobbying firm representing NYCFC, emphasized that the $800 million privately financed construction project will be built with 100 percent union labor and will create upwards of 4,000 jobs — 1,555 of which will be permanent — making for over $300 million in construction wages, salaries and benefits. “[That’s] real money that’s going to be flowing into the pockets of the households of the folks in this community, in this borough,” White said. He also revealed that the stadium will be the first all-electric stadium in Major League Soccer, and the first of its kind in New York City.

The Phase II ULURP comes six months after the completion of Phase I’s environmental remediation work. Phase I also includes the construction of 1,100 units of affordable housing, a 650-seat K-8 school and retail space.

Issuing a special permit to build the soccer stadium is one of Phase II’s five land use actions that the board is expected to vote on come Dec. 4. Ethan Goodman, director of New York planning and project proposal at Fox Rothschild, a law firm involved with the project, outlined the other four actions, including amending zoning resolution text, issuing special permits to build the hotel, as well as a permit to modify parking regulations, and changing the street map of New York City to reflect redevelopment changes.

Board members raised safety and security concerns about the proposed redevelopment plans, namely how the city will mitigate a potential spike in crime when several thousand new residents move into their new homes by the stadium.

That’s why First Vice Chair Chuck Apelian is looking at the ULURP as an opportunity to push for an additional police precinct in Community District 7. The idea of dividing the 109th Precinct in half has gained in popularity in the last year or so, in part due to concerns that its large geographic size has led to longer response times.

“We have a public safety desert in our district, especially when you go out away from the precinct and [to] Downtown Flushing,” Apelian said.

“What I’m concerned about is the severe effects it’s going to have on [the] 109th Precinct,” said Joe Sweeney, who chairs the board’s Public Safety Committee. When someone interjected to point out that Willets Point is in the 110th Precinct, not the 109th, Sweeney argued that crime does not adhere to strict borders, noting that the 109th has the highest number of index crimes of any Queens precinct this year.

Despite Apelian and Sweeney’s remarks, Goodman did not address the possibility of a continued on page 18