Opinion: Getting It Right For Hunters Point North

“This half mile of shoreline just south of the Queensboro Bridge has the potential to become the city’s next great waterfront—if we prioritize public interest over private profit.”

New Yorkers treasure every inch of waterfront, yet too often the public loses out. Hunters Point  North—with its panoramic views of Midtown Manhattan, rich industrial history, and vibrant, creative community—is uniquely positioned for revitalization on one of the last remaining underutilized stretches of the East River.

This half mile of shoreline just south of the Queensboro Bridge has the potential to become the city’s next great waterfront—if we prioritize public interest over private profit. 

The city’s recently approved OneLIC rezoning for over 50 blocks of Long Island City threatens to repeat mistakes of the Greenpoint rezoning on the Hunters Point North waterfront. Despite OneLIC’s marketing as a Neighborhood Plan, it is the opposite: it serves private interests while  failing to address the community’s critical needs. What’s more, it creates a false choice between housing and everything else, exploiting the simplistic YIMBY vs NIMBY divide. Rather than a plan, it is a formula for unchecked development that has failed New Yorkers before.  

OneLIC claims to provide 14,700 new apartments—but at a high price. Its massive scale will  compound existing problems, including soaring rents resulting from the nearly 40,000 mostly luxury apartments built here since the early 2000s. Rents for “affordable” units, calculated as a  percentage of the city’s inflated Area Median Income, will be out of reach to most of those in  need. Most egregiously, city-owned waterfront property (over seven acres), as well as several  public streets to the waterfront, will be handed to private developers, and towers could soar as high as 100 stories, dwarfing their surroundings and casting shadows as far as Midtown Manhattan.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood’s per capita open space—currently third lowest in the city—will  plummet to the lowest. And nearly one million square feet, about half, of LIC’s industrial space that could be revitalized for new, clean manufacturing jobs will be sacrificed for luxury high rises or for office space the city does not need.  

All of this with no cohesive plan for infrastructure, schools, stormwater management, sewers, or transit to support nearly 50,000 new residents and workers—let alone to address LIC’s existing  problems and deficits. And while we applaud our councilmember’s efforts to secure necessary funding as part of the rezoning deal, past experience shows that such promises are far from guaranteed.

The most serious violation to the public good is the plan’s lack of resiliency safeguards. It leaves  resiliency across LIC’s vulnerable floodplain to a patchwork of protections dependent on private  developers. This cavalier approach to safety places the larger community at risk and counters the city’s more rigorous coastline planning in Manhattan. 

Hunters Point North could become a resilient, sustainably developed neighborhood with generous, world-class public waterfront parks, like those at Battery Park City, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and  nearby Hunters Point South. But to do that we must learn from past mistakes. Two decades ago, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning promised 54 acres of parks and true affordability in exchange for private developments. Instead, a wall of luxury towers went up, rents soared, and the community is still fighting to keep Bushwick Inlet Park.

There is a better way forward. Over the past year, Long Island City Coalition and Hunters Point Community Coalition—along with other local groups and the support of State Senators Michael Gianaris and Kristen Gonzalez—led a grassroots planning process that created the Hunters Point North Vision Plan for Resiliency. 

The award-winning Vision Plan presents a cohesive alternative for sustainable and holistic  development rooted in four principles: resiliency, equity, balance, and connection. Resiliency is an existential need and must come first. When Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012, six feet of fast-moving floodwaters tore through Hunters Point. Today, rising sea levels and extreme rainfalls make the risks even worse. 

The Vision Plan proposes a continuous, elevated waterfront park that combines green infrastructure and engineered solutions for long-term, robust flood mitigation. It would safeguard the community while saving the city millions of dollars in avoided damage—up to $6 for every $1 invested, according to the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. 

Equity means public land should stay in public hands and be used appropriately to serve public  needs—including for schools and essential services. We cannot build “affordable housing” where it is unsafe or while undercutting the very foundations that make communities livable. 

Balance means keeping what works. LIC’s industrial sector is home to hundreds of artists, makers, and small manufacturers—an economic ecosystem that fuels the city’s creative engine. The Vision Plan offers a true mixed-use model of development with human-scaled live/work buildings that complement the character of the neighborhood while generating sustainable growth. 

Connection means designing to bring communities together. The Vision Plan proposes a network of  tree-lined streets linking inland parks and open spaces—like those at Court Square and  MoMA/PS1—to the riverfront. They would protect against intensifying heatwaves, expand waterfront access, and help unify the neighborhood. 

Importantly, the Vision Plan calls for capturing a larger share of the enormous value created by  rezonings and reinvesting these funds back into the community. Development rights, climate resiliency funds, and infrastructure levies can all be tools for supporting what communities need—if New Yorkers demand them.

The city faces an important choice. We’ve seen what happens when short-term profit drives long term planning. Waterfront communities like Greenpoint are promised public benefits that rarely  materialize, while private gains soar. Hunters Point North can be different—but only if decision-makers listen and vote to prioritize lasting values. 

Decades ago, the LIC community insisted on an alternative development plan for Hunters Point South. It included a continuous waterfront park that has made Long Island City the desirable neighborhood it is today. Hunters Point North could be the next great waterfront neighborhood on the East River if we follow the community’s lead once again. Let’s get it right.

Lisa Goren is president of the Long Island City Coalition. Tom Paino is a registered architect and the founder and president of Hunters Point Community Coalition. The Coalitions are sister organizations that have collaborated with other local community groups to support holistic, community-based urban planning grounded in sustainability, equity, and resiliency.