“When we came into office, we promised to turn the page on decades of half-measures and deliver the housing New Yorkers need. Four years later, we’ve done exactly that. With our five neighborhood plans and historic ‘City of Yes’ initiative all passed, we’ve laid the foundation for over 130,000 homes and changed the conversation around housing in our city,” said Mayor Adams. “The OneLIC plan is not only the largest neighborhood rezoning in at least a quarter of a century, but a plan that will deliver the housing, jobs, and public space this vibrant neighborhood needs, while creating a more affordable city for working-class New Yorkers.”
“Long Island City is one of New York City’s most dynamic neighborhoods, with a central location and excellent access to public transit and amenities. But for too long, entire areas have been closed off to new housing and have limited jobs. That changes today,” said DCP Director and CPC Chair Garodnick. “The approval of this plan opens the door for more New Yorkers of all income levels to live and work here — and to benefit from new open space and community investments. Thank you to Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams, Chairs Salamanca and Riley, and especially Councilmember Won for her leadership and partnership on creating a more equitable, vibrant, and welcoming future for Long Island City.”
OneLIC Neighborhood Plan will update outdated zoning and expand access to the waterfront. Image Credit: DCP.
Long Island City is a fast-growing economic and cultural hub with easy access to transit, housing, and commercial and industrial job opportunities. While parts of this neighborhood have welcomed thousands of residents, businesses, and public waterfront space, other areas have remained saddled by outdated zoning that restricted new housing and left large parts of the waterfront neglected and inaccessible to the public. The OneLIC Neighborhood Plan is designed to address these challenges.
The plan’s boundaries stretch from the East River waterfront to Crescent Street and Queens Plaza North to 47th Avenue, with one segment reaching further up to 39th Avenue between 21st Street to 23rd Street.
Building More Affordable Homes
The passage of the OneLIC Neighborhood Plan is a significant milestone towards creating a more affordable and equitable Long Island City for working-class families. The plan will create 14,700 new homes across the neighborhood, the most amount of housing generated by a neighborhood-specific rezoning in at least 25 years. By requiring new developments in Long Island City to include permanently affordable housing via Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and using city subsidies on public sites, the plan is expected to produce roughly 4,350 income-restricted homes — enough to house over 10,000 New Yorkers. That number includes 320 homes for lower-income New Yorkers at 44-59 45th Avenue, where the city currently houses New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) operations.
On top of new housing, this initiative will also dedicate over $200 million to much-needed repairs and upgrades for the nearby Queensbridge Houses, improving the quality of life for the residents of the largest public housing complex in North America. These funds include over $100 million to modernize plumbing and renovate kitchens and bathrooms, as well as almost another $100 million to replace or repair 80 elevators, fix sinkholes, add new playground space, install new interior lighting, and more. Another $5.3 million is dedicated to improvements to the Jacob Riis Community Center.
OneLIC Neighborhood Plan would unify the waterfront from Gantry Plaza State Park to Queensbridge Park, creating a consistent public space for the neighborhood. Credit: DCP.
More Public Space and Schools
The Long Island City community has long called for more open space. Although this area has an extensive shoreline, public access has been disjointed and, in some cases, restricted entirely. The OneLIC Neighborhood Plan will create a new, continuous esplanade for the community from Gantry Plaza State Park to Queensbridge Park, a nearly two-mile stretch that will unify the waterfront and make it easier than ever for New Yorkers to relax along the East River.
The plan will also create nearly five acres of open space under the Queensboro Bridge, including Queensbridge Baby Park, a significant investment that will serve nearby residents of Queensbridge Houses and the broader community for decades to come. This public space was a beloved community resource throughout the 20th century, a role this plan will restore with new landscaping, seating, lighting, and more. Additional public realm commitments include improvements to Queensbridge Park, such as a new playground, upgrades to the fields and courts, a new water play area, reconstructed restrooms, and more. The city will also facilitate the redevelopment of DOT ramps sites in the Court Square area into public space and study the feasibility of public realm improvements around the Queensboro Bridge ramps.
Additionally, the OneLIC Neighborhood Plan invests in public education. Two new elementary schools, with a total of 1,094 seats, are in the works for Hunters Point and Court Square and will open for the 2027 and 2028 school years, respectively. Further, the city will construct a new 600-seat school at 5-46 46th Avenue near Anable Basin, as well as acquire land when the need arises to build two additional 650-seat schools in the neighborhood. Finally, the plan commits to relocating the Baccalaureate School for Global Education to a new, more modern facility.
More Jobs, Better Streets, and a New Community Center
The OneLIC plan will also grow the local economy by creating over 3.5 million square feet of commercial and industrial space, generating approximately 14,400 new jobs across a range of sectors. To support workers, as well as residents and visitors, the plan will fund a series of streetscape and transportation-related enhancements, including a safer 44th Drive for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and truck drivers; a comprehensive lighting study in the Long Island City Industrial Business Zone; pedestrian safety improvements at Queensboro Bridge landing; and $300,000 for services to assist small businesses. To support Long Island City’s cultural landscape, the plan dedicates funds to renovate the Long Island City YMCA Branch, with another $45 million coming to the neighborhood this fiscal year to support local arts and cultural organizations.
Planning with the Community
Building on two years of public engagement, the OneLIC Neighborhood Plan was shaped by close collaboration with community stakeholders, including the New York City Housing Authority Queensbridge Houses Tenant Associations, the Long Island City Partnership, Queens Community Boards 1 and 2, the Queens Public Library, the Jacob Riis Community Center, and the Hunters Point Park Conservancy. During the public review process, the plan received supportive recommendations from Queens Community Boards 1 and 2 as well as Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, and a positive vote at the City Planning Commission.
Most Pro-Housing Administration in City History
OneLIC is the fifth neighborhood plan to be approved under the Adams administration, following passage of the Bronx-Metro North Station Area Plan, the Midtown South plan, the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, and the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan. Together, these five initiatives are expected to deliver nearly 50,000 homes over the next 15 years to New York neighborhoods.
Since entering office, Mayor Adams has made historic investments to create more affordable housing and ensure more New Yorkers have a place to call home. Earlier this year, Mayor Adams announced that his administration has created, preserved, or planned approximately 426,800 homes for New Yorkers through its work through the end of the last fiscal year — a number which has already grown to over 433,250 homes to date. Mayor Adams also announced that, in Fiscal Year 2025, the Adams administration created the most affordable rental units in city history and celebrated back-to-back-to-back record-breaking years for producing permanently-affordable homes for formerly-homeless New Yorkers, placing homeless New Yorkers into housing, and connecting New Yorkers to housing through the city’s housing lottery.
In addition to creating and preserving record amounts of affordable and market-rate housing for New Yorkers, the Adams administration has also passed ambitious plans that will create tens of thousands of new homes as well. Last December, Mayor Adams celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing proposal in city history that will build 80,000 new homes over 15 years and invest $5 billion in critical infrastructure updates and housing.
Building on the success of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, Mayor Adams unveiled his “City of Yes for Families” strategy in his State of the City address earlier this year to build more homes and create more family-friendly neighborhoods across New York City. Under City of Yes for Families, the Adams administration is advancing more housing on city-owned sites, creating new tools to support homeownership, and building more housing alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, accessible transit stations, and libraries.
Further, the Adams administration is actively working to strengthen tenant protections and support homeowners. The “Partners in Preservation” program was expanded citywide in 2024 through a $24 million investment in local organizations to support tenant organizing and combat harassment in rent-regulated housing. The Homeowner Help Desk, a trusted one-stop shop for low-income homeowners to receive financial and legal counseling from local organizations, was also expanded citywide in 2024 with a $13 million funding commitment.
Finally, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that are already helping spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
