Queens pols chat about Mamdani’s Trump Sunnyside Yard pitch

Queens elected officials got the chance to grill the Mamdani administration Thursday about a proposal to put a deck over Sunnyside Yard in Queens and build 12,000 units of housing with 21 billion federal dollars. The idea, which resulted from a chummy photo-op between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump in February, remains theoretical.

Deputy Mayors Leila Bozorg and Julie Su convened the virtual meeting Thursday to answer questions from Council Members Tiffany Cabán and Julie Won, Council Speaker Julie Menin’s staffer Jonathan Szott, Assembly Members Claire Valdez and Diana Moreno, state Sens. Mike Gianaris and Kristen Gonzalez and staff for  Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velázquez as well as New York’s U.S. senators.

“They genuinely seem to be approaching this from a positive element of engaging locals, which is not something the previous iteration of city leadership did,” Gianaris said, referring to a previous version of the project pitched during the de Blasio administration. 

Mamdani administration officials didn’t have much to report. There is no commitment of federal funding yet, though city officials have begun talking with Amtrak and the MTA. Right now, the city is using a previously shelved 2020 plan as a starting point for discussions. “We’re encouraged by the early signs of interest in securing a historic level of federal investment in affordable housing here in New York, and continue to have conversations with partners across city, state, and federal government about what it would take to deliver 12,000 new homes, tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, and a once-in-a-generation investment,” City Hall spokesperson Matthew Rauschenbach said in a statement.

On the question of funding, White House representatives referred us to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond to a request for comment. Mamdani’s trip to Washington, D.C., earlier this year wasn’t announced in advance, and many elected officials were unaware the mayor planned to pitch the moonshot project. Won was frustrated that the mayor unilaterally brought the idea to the president. “Our community deserves a seat at the table long before anyone, including the mayor, makes headlines in the Oval Office especially for a project they have previously rejected,” she said after the mayor’s White House visit. Won, who is running for Congress against Mamdani’s preferred candidate Valdez, is hosting a town hall on the project on Monday.