Op-Ed: Roosevelt Island Planning Must Include Western Queens

OANA has released a new op-ed responding to the announcement extending the Roosevelt Island master lease to 2078 and launching a long-term planning process for housing, redevelopment, and infrastructure.

One main theme of the op-ed is that while Roosevelt Island is politically tied to Manhattan, every emergency response, sanitation route, service vehicle, and roadway access point runs through Astoria and Long Island City. Western Queens carries the operational burden but has no representation in decisions that directly affect our streets and services.

The op-ed calls for Queens to be formally included in all planning, a transparent analysis of service impacts on Astoria and LIC, and a review of Roosevelt Island’s community-district and political alignment. It also urges public meetings to be held in Queens, where the real-world effects are felt.

Read the full op-ed here.

This op-ed was also published in Qns.com and the Queens Gazette.