Horses being walked within the paddock of Aqueduct Racetrack, which can maintain its ultimate race in June.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Growth in New York Metropolis is about as aggressive because it will get, so it’s applicable that the following huge improvement alternative within the Huge Apple ought to be a racetrack.
Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens is closing after over 130 years of steady horse racing operation. The New York Racing Affiliation (NYRA) is consolidating its downstate racing at a rebuilt Belmont Park in September and will likely be handing over the keys to the 100-acre Aqueduct web site to New York state this fall.
What the state will do with Aqueduct is anybody’s guess at this level. On Tuesday, the state-run Empire State Growth introduced two conferences scheduled for subsequent week, together with an in-person workshop in Queens, to solicit public concepts.
However the favourite to win this improvement derby should be inexpensive housing — one thing New York Metropolis desperately wants, however is in uncommon provide.
At 100 acres, Aqueduct represents a golden alternative for the state and metropolis to place a critical dent within the inexpensive housing disaster. The location is larger than Hudson Yards (28 acres), Willets Level (23 acres) and Hunters Level South (30 acres) mixed — three new, largely residential communities which have been developed or are nonetheless being constructed during the last 20 years.
Aqueduct would be the subsequent New York Metropolis group constructed from the bottom up — however to actually succeed, it should be cultivated in a means very totally different from the event town has seen in current a long time.
The land ought to embrace a good mixture of not simply hovering condominium buildings but in addition townhouses and rowhouses. There’s greater than sufficient land to do each. The smaller homes ought to slot in with the character of the neighboring communities of Ozone Park and South Ozone Park, that are dominated by one- to three-family houses.
There ought to be alternatives for households from throughout town not solely to hire inexpensive residences but in addition to purchase inexpensive houses. The American dream of residence possession is slipping away for too many individuals due to the hovering prices of housing; the median residence worth at present exceeds $800,000 for a one-family residence.
Town and state, in cooperation with builders, may provide a lottery for eligible middle-income households and first-time homebuyers to “get in on the ground floor” and buy their very own houses at Aqueduct at a fraction of the price.
And the brand new neighborhood must also embrace a purchasing and enterprise hub that isn’t dominated by chain shops however somewhat mom-and-pop companies owned and operated by folks in the neighborhood.
Investing in inexpensive housing and small enterprise at a redeveloped Aqueduct Racetrack is the neatest wager the state and metropolis may make in its future. It should assist hold hundreds of households within the metropolis they love and stop them from being priced out of it for good.
