One Long Island City
One Long Island City
A summary of the kickoff meeting of the new comprehensive planning effort
The first public meeting for One Long Island City, the newly announced comprehensive planning effort for the neighborhood, was held last night at Culture Lab. At the kickoff open house, city officials, planning experts, and community members gathered to discuss the plan's objectives and engage with the community.
New York City Council Member Julie Won, who initiated this project, emphasized that the initiative is building upon existing community input (the One LIC plan builds upon past plans — everything from the Special LIC Mixed-Use District Rezoning in 2001 to YourLIC in 2019.) and will seek to consider the diversity of voices in LIC. The overarching goal is to “build consensus and have a clear transparent process.” The One LIC initiative brings together multiple stakeholders, including the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP), community members, and experts from WXY, an architecture and design firm. From their presentation: “One LIC is a holistic community planning process to gain input and build consensus on key neighborhood challenges and opportunities toward the development of an LIC neighborhood plan.”
One LIC encompasses a preliminary study area and a broader context area. The preliminary study area is the part that’s focuses on potential land use changes, while the context area is being analyzed for holistic study — including to identify local challenges, promote economic development, enhance arts and culture, improve public transportation, and address waterfront resiliency.
The planning process will follow a multi-year schedule, involving town halls, focus area meetings, and digital engagement. There will be three town halls (with the final one dedicated to presenting a zoning proposal), as well as three rounds of focus area meetings — addressing economic development, arts, culture, community resources, public realm and transportation, waterfront resiliency and open space, and various aspects of housing. Digital engagement will attempt to ensure that a broader cross-section of the community can participate. Here are more details on the timeline:
May 2024: Release community recommendations and draft zoning proposal
June 2024: Release draft scope of work
July 2024: Scoping meeting
February 2025: Release draft LIC neighborhood plan
March 2025: Certification
I’m a member of Community Board 2’s Land Use and Housing committee, so I’ll personally stay very close to all the developments surrounding this One LIC plan. This process presents an opportunity for LIC residents to actively participate in shaping their community's future. With a multi-year process, (hopefully) broad stakeholder engagement, and (hopefully) a commitment to transparency, the project has the potential to lead to significant changes in LIC. As the plan progresses, it will be essential for the community to stay engaged, voice their concerns and aspirations, and collaborate with city agencies and planners to build a more resilient and inclusive neighborhood.
The Blissville Civic Association looks forward to engaging in conversation with CB2 Land Use Committee to discuss our community of Blissville in Long Island City Queens.
We were advised the evening of the kick-off by several of the table monitors and Alexis Wheeler that the Land Use Committee of CB2 will play and instrumental role in recommending what neighborhoods within the "Context Area" will be included in the One Long Island City project along with which "Areas of Focus" will be identified for those neighborhoods.
We were pleased to learn that Blissville is in fact contained within the "Context Area" albeit some of the maps presented last night incorrectly identified the neighborhood of Blissville being located in Sunnyside - we are not, we are in LIC zip code 11101 (that feedback provided directly to Alexis Wheeler).
The Blissville Civic Association (BCA) has sent a request to CB2 of Queens to meet with the Land Use Committee. Our 2023 Items of Significance developed by the BCA along with our other expressed needs over the last few years... such as the Blissville Greenway, the Dutch Kills Loop, Tree coverage, Sewer needs and the like... each of these items sets a strong foundation for our desired discussions with the Land Use Committee --- as we believe each of the BCA items nicely aligns with each of the Areas of Focus spoken of in the One LIC Project and specifically as it relates to communities within the context area.
In addition, we have taken guidance from recent dialogue with Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez's office advising us that the Congresswoman has obtained the funds from the federal government for infrastructure investments in our area but it is up to the local government to decide where and how to spend.
We very much want to be part of any discussions at the community board level along with any dialogue with Councilmember Won on where and how investments, programs and the areas of focus will be applied within the context area. We want to see investments in our community of Blissville.
In closing, we thought the evening of the kick-off event was great, we learned much and were pleased to receive confirmation that Blissville is within the scope of the project. The Blissville Civic Association Leadership Team awaits a response to our request to CB2 for the opportunity to speak with the land use committee about our community's needs and the support we seek from the Land Use Committee in supporting Blissville's stated needs in the context of the focus areas that will be applied to the communities within the context area.