City Council approves Queens’ largest ever affordable housing project after NYCFC football stadium

The City Council on Tuesday approved what it calls the largest private affordable housing project ever built in the borough of Queens — a 3,190-apartment complex along five blocks of Astoria.

An estimated 1,436, or 45%, of the 3,190 units for the $2 billion Innovation QNS complex will have “affordable” rents to accommodate low- and middle-income tenants.

This number includes 825 units for households with extremely or very low incomes or for people living in homeless shelters.

The council’s support comes just days after Mayor Eric Adams announced a 25,000-seat football stadium and affordable housing development at Queens’ Willets Point near the Mets’ Citi Field stadium.

The $780 million football arena for the New York City Football Club is privately funded and includes a hotel and 2,500 affordable apartments.

Adams called the Astoria development “a game changer.”

“This is exactly the kind of historic work we need to do to address the housing shortage at the root of our affordable housing crisis,” the mayor said.

“Queens is the borough of ‘yes’,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.

“We cannot recycle old rhetoric. It’s time to build our way out of the real estate crisis. Queens is the borough of the future and moving forward,” he said.

Local councilwoman Julie Won pledged her support after the developers – a partnership that includes Silverstein Properties, BedRock Real Estate Partners and Kaufman Astoria Studios – agreed to increase the proportion of affordable housing from 40% to 45%.

Developers will also provide $2 million in free legal advice to protect neighboring tenants from evictions in one of the city’s hottest, gentrifying neighborhoods.

The $2 billion development will overtake a five-block industrial estate that also includes the Museum of the Moving Image.