Queens News: Council Clears Queens for New Housing and Gives Bronx Armory Another Go
In closely watched rezonings pressed by Mayor Adams, Council members secure local gains — and say it makes the case for them to keep power
This article originally appeared in The City.
By Samantha Maldonado
Queens Voice
October 30, 2025
QUEENS NEWS - Queens is slated for a housing boom, with tens of thousands of new apartments on deck in two growing neighborhoods.
The City Council on Wednesday approved a rezoning for Jamaica and a key Council committee greenlit a modified plan for Long Island City.
Plus, the full Council gave the thumbs-up to a redevelopment plan for the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory in The Bronx, which would include an adjacent 500 affordable apartments.
The Long Island City and Jamaica plans together could create about 27,000 new homes in the two neighborhoods, which both boast good access to public transit and have already seen immense housing growth.
Jamaica and Long Island City are already two of the city’s most productive neighborhoods for adding new housing. In 2024, according to the Department of City Planning, Jamaica completed 1,292 units while Long Island City added 1,856, with thousands more units permitted in each neighborhood.
None of the housing plans were without controversy, with some Queens locals opposing them for reasons that included dissatisfaction with the rents on proposed affordable housing and concerns about significant neighborhood change.
Through rezonings and City of Yes, its citywide land-use overhaul, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams has focused on allowing for more residential development given the low availability of rental housing. The latest Council developments represent a boon to Adams’ legacy before he leaves office at the end of this year.
“These historic proposals for the Kingsbridge Armory, Jamaica, and Long Island City will help build thousands of new homes, create thousands of new jobs, and open up vibrant new spaces for New Yorkers to enjoy,” Adams said in a statement. “Above all, they will help create a more affordable city where people can still live, work and raise a family.”
Meanwhile the City Council touted its role in negotiating with the administration to secure important community investments and changes to the proposals. The Council has been trying to convince voters to reject three proposals on their ballots that would change the city charter to fast track affordable housing, removing the Council entirely from the process in some instances.
For zoning changes that still would go to a Council vote — including major city-initiated upzonings like those in Jamaica and Long Island City — one of the ballot proposals would allow developers to appeal where the Council votes no, potentially diminishing local members’ bargaining power.
Speaker Adrienne Adams emphasized that the process to approve the new rezonings was long but necessary to “get it right” — and she took a critical swing at the ballot proposals without mentioning them.
“When you have a Council delegation, a Council member, who is committed and dedicated to their community, to their borough, to make sure the work is done correctly, and now looking at us today, kind of questioning that process, it really gives a lot of — it’s just a very strange feeling,” she said at a press conference before the Council’s meeting.
Jamaica Boom
The rezoning of Jamaica targets 230 blocks in Southeast Queens, including around the downtown Jamaica area, home to a mix of shops, warehouses, some industrial uses and residences. It’s the site of a key Long Island Rail Road station and several subway lines.
The area encompasses parts of the districts of Speaker Adams, and Councilmembers Nantasha Williams and James Gennaro. A recent report by the New York Housing Conference found that Adams’ district was one of three in the city that produced no affordable housing during the first six months of this year.
Of the nearly 12,000 new apartments that could result from the rezoning, almost 4,000 would be affordable with the help of public financing on city-owned sites and through mandatory inclusionary housing codes that already mandate income-restricted apartments in new buildings.
The housing will be high-rise or mid-rise, depending on location. To spur businesses and job growth, certain areas will also support more manufacturing and industrial uses.
The Council’s approval of the neighborhood plan also directs $413 million to sewer upgrades, parks and a community center, among other investments. An independent body called the Downtown Jamaica Oversight Task Force will convene to make sure officials follow through on commitments.
“As a longtime resident of Jamaica and a former co-chair of the Jamaica NOW Leadership Council, this neighborhood rezoning is deeply important to me and my community,” Speaker Adams said. “Our Jamaica is a thriving and vibrant community whose success is pivotal to the prosperity of Southeast Queens and our entire city.”
Williams called the plan a “reinvestment in our people and in our neighborhoods.”
“We are building a Jamaica that is vibrant, walkable and thriving, a hub where people can live, work and play, not just pass through,” she said.
However, not all were happy about the plan. A group of opponents known as the Jamaica Campaign Against Rezoning Expansion raised concerns that the new housing will not be affordable to current residents, resulting in displacement.
Long Island City Growth
In Long Island City — about eight miles west of Jamaica — another rezoning of a 54-block area could result in more than 14,700 new apartments, with about 4,300 of them affordable.
It includes sites around Anable Basin that Amazon had targeted for its HQ2 project in 2018 before pulling out amid fervent community and labor opposition, as well as a massive former Department of Education facility for which the city is now seeking development proposals.
Under the new rezoning, developers could erect high-rise buildings along the currently industrial waterfront, just east of NYCHA’s Queensbridge Houses, and near Court Square.
In total, the plan could generate the largest amount of housing from a neighborhood rezoning in at least a quarter century, according to the Department of City Planning — nearly twice as much as what resulted from the Gowanus rezoning in Brooklyn.
Councilmember Julie Won gave the OneLIC plan her blessing, after negotiating with the administration and other stakeholders over new schools and a connection she sought on the waterfront between Queensbridge Park to Gantry State Park.
Won’s approval was far from guaranteed, and negotiating some of those elements came down to the wire.
Won secured over $1.5 billion to fund the restoration of Queensbridge Baby Park, sewage and plumbing upgrades and improvements at NYCHA’s Queensbridge Houses.
Before the full City Council can advance the modified Long Island City plan, it must go back to the City Planning Commission for its approval. But with Won’s support, the Council is expected to approve the rezoning.
Pro-housing group Open New York praised the plan in a statement for delivering “urgently needed new homes.”
Jenny Dubnau, co-chair of the Western Queens Community Land Trust, which has been pushing for more and more deeply affordable housing as part of the neighborhood plan, said she was glad for the investments and commitments Won secured.
Bue she still expressed disappointment.
“I think what we’re still going to get, even with these concessions, is a pretty massive influx of unaffordable housing, more than what we already have in LIC,” Dubnau said. “The concessions, unfortunately, don’t mitigate the badness of this plan. We’re not getting enough affordable housing and all the infrastructure she negotiated, we needed that infrastructure anyway. Why is needed public infrastructure contingent upon massive market-rate rezonings?”
Movement in The Bronx
Thanks to the Council’s sign-off, the historic and long-neglected Kingsbridge Armory in the Kingsbridge Heights neighborhood of The Bronx is slated to be redeveloped as a multi-purpose site, with space for events, art, community use, light manufacturing, recreation and more. As part of the plan, 500 permanently affordable rental apartments will be built next to the Armory with ground-floor room for retail.
Councilmember Pierina Sanchez said she grew up in the shadows of the armory, which reflected both "immense potential” and “the pain of disinvestment.”
“We are finally transforming that potential into promise,” she said. “This is a blueprint for equity, for accountability, for opportunity, made by and for the people of The Bronx.”
The entire project, backed by $375 million in city, state, federal and private funds to cover the development and community benefits, will occur in two phases: the mixed-use redevelopment of the armory itself will break ground next year for an expected 2030 completion, and the separate housing development is expected to be done by 2032.
Funding will also be used to support small businesses, to expand after-school programming and to renovate parks, among other initiatives.
In an unprecedented deal, the local nonprofit Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition will own a 20% stake in the Amory project, which will be developed by 8th Regiment Partners.
“After more than three decades of planning, organizing, and negotiating with the people of Kingsbridge, this community benefits agreement will finally bring our community’s vision for the Kingsbridge Armory to life,” said Sandra Lobo, executive director of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, in a statement. “The plan for the Kingsbridge Armory is one that we can be proud of.”
The Amory has sat vacant for many years, and a 2009 attempt to rezone it failed to yield a hoped-for shopping and entertainment project. Since then, the city has used it to distribute supplies and food after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the 2022 Twin Parks fire.
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