I don’t usually like to make the protesters – the ones that haunt the Sunnyside Yards and BQX streetcar planning meetings – the whole story. But last night they didn’t just create a scene, they really disrupted, true to the word, the city’s BQX outreach meeting in Long Island City.
The drama was similar to that which happened at the Sunnyside Yards master plan meeting six months ago, when Queens protesters stood on a table, and created a people’s mic-style forum of sorts, in the middle of the gallery space where info-boards were set-up on easels. At that time, Queens Neighborhoods United dubbed the action a “#SSYshutdown.” But at that meeting, the city planners were still able to hold a separate community meeting in a room down the hall. When the protesters finally tried to get into the meeting, the door was blocked, leaving them to chant in the hall. But not this time. Continue reading “Protesters turn BQX meeting in LIC upside down”
Activists disrupt Sunnyside Yards meeting at Aviation High School.
At a rowdy third* public meeting for the Sunnyside Yards master plan, the new head of the planning team, Adam Grossman Meagher, said the team is considering a public land trust as part of the financing scheme.
“You can imagine part of this that’s created through traditional means,” Grossman Meagher said. “You can also imagine,” he said, part of the site as a community land trust.
A CLT is a community-based non-profit that owns the land, allowing residents to control the use, and are used to maintain affordability. There has been a CLT movement and a push in the city council.
The idea of a public land trust has been on the lists of demands by activists who’ve made their presence felt at the master plan community outreach meetings throughout the year.
EDC’s Adam Grossman Meagher (right), LIC Partnership president, Elizabeth Lusskin (red dress) and a man guarding the door from protesters.
Protesters were a major part of this third general public meeting, holding an Occupy-style mic-check demonstration in the middle of the event. The lead protestor led the disruption from a table in the Aviation High School cafeteria where poster boards were on display around the periphery. The 50 or so participants in the call-and-response eventually targeted a small side-room where Grossman Meagher and lead consultant Vishaan Chakrabarti were leading a presentation on the emerging master plan. The protesters were not allowed inside but after they chanted a demand for entry, Grossman Meagher mentioned the CLT discussions off-handedly.
A look at how the Master Plan is beginning to shape up.
Asked (to confirm) if the Economic Development Corporation was discussing the possibility of a CLT, Grossman Meagher said “yes,” and that the idea was on one of the poster boards. I couldn’t find the idea on the poster boards except for one board of a list of ideas heard by participants at public meetings.
Sunnyside Yards BINGO? (Bottom left corner: CLT)
The team plans to have another meeting later this year and a master plan ready by sometime in winter. At this third general meeting, some ideas of how the plan is shaping up were on display. Check out those images in the slideshow below.
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*This was corrected: the EDC held the third, not fourth general public SSY master plan meeting.
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