Long Island City Core Neighborhood Planning Study

What is the Long Island City Core Neighborhood Study?

The LIC Core Neighborhood Planning Study aims to examine key land use and zoning issues in the neighborhood, but also take a broader, more comprehensive look at current and future community needs to identify a wide range of strategies and investments for LIC’s growth and vitality.
The Study is a part of Housing New York, the Mayor’s housing plan to build and preserve affordable housing through community development initiatives and to foster a more equitable and livable New York City. Housing is considered “affordable” if a household spends no more than a third of its total income on housing costs.

PDF Document View the Study Area and Land Use Map

The LIC Core Neighborhood Planning Study aims to include strategies for:

The study area has many assets for developing an economically diverse, 24/7, mixed-use community in the center of LIC, such as excellent access to mass transit, strong demand for residential and non-residential development, an emerging East River waterfront community, and proximity to Manhattan and the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island that’s currently under construction. With its strong real estate market producing more than 10,000 new, mainly market rate apartments and over 1.5 million square feet of office space in recent years, Queens Plaza and Court Square, located within the heart of the larger Long Island City (LIC) neighborhood, are rapidly evolving into a vibrant hub and gateway to the borough. However, new housing is mostly market-rate and commercial development has not kept pace with residential development. The planning process is a great opportunity to explore the study area’s capacity for additional housing development that would be affordable to households with a broad range of incomes, support the area’s mixed-use character by creating opportunities for new businesses and jobs to grow here, and identify necessary infrastructure to support and existing and planned development.

PDF Document Learn more about LIC’s history and context.

Community engagement will play a pivotal role in the creation and implementation of the neighborhood study. With assistance from the LIC Core Stakeholders Advisory Group, established for the purpose of advising city and state agencies on the study, DCP will lead a wide range of events and activities throughout the process to facilitate public participation and engage the community in the planning process. The Stakeholders Group includes Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan, State Senator Michael Gianaris, Representative Carolyn Maloney, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Community Board 1, Community Board 2, LIC Partnership, LIC Business Improvement District, Dutch Kills Civic Association, Urban Upbound, Long Island City Cultural Alliance, and the Queensbridge Tenants Association.

Partnering with DCP on this Plan are the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Department of Small Business Services (SBS), Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Department of Transportation (CDOT), New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), Department of Education (DOE), School Construction Authority (SCA), NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation (MOER), and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA). In addition, in advance of this neighborhood study, DCP’s Transportation Division and Queens Office have completed draft transportation recommendations for Western Queens, including the study area, and are working with the applicable city and state agencies on an implementation plan for the study’s key recommendations.

For more information on the study, contact the City Planning Queens Office at 1-718-520-2100 or LICCore@planning.nyc.gov.

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