🚦Innovation QNS Megaproject Gets Green Light + Rikers Violence Report

Good morning, Queens! 😌

• 🏙 Following years of intense negotiations, a new neighborhood will be built in Astoria after the City Council on Tuesday approved the Innovation QNS rezoning proposal.
• 📂 A U.S. District Court Judge ordered Monday that city’s Department of Corrections submit a report next year disclosing data related to violence on Rikers Island and said the information would remain confidential.
• 💜 Mayor Eric Adams signed a bill Tuesday for legislation aimed at supporting survivors of domestic violence.

☀️☀️ Plenty of sunshine. High: 54 Low: 38.

Here are the top stories today in Queens:

1. Following years of negotiations, a new neighborhood will be built in Astoria after the City Council on Tuesday approved the Innovation QNS rezoning proposal, allowing for the five-block development to be built. The megaproject will include 3,190 apartments, plus a movie theater, grocery store, shops, arts space, and more all spread across a dozen new buildings in the low-rise, industrial area between 37th Street and Northern Boulevard, north of 36th Avenue. The addition of 300 affordable homes — for a total of 1,436 affordable units, about 45% of the apartments — was secured during last-minute negotiations by Council Member Julie Won, who had fiercely opposed the development until now. “We will no longer, in my district, allow luxury development to outpace the development of affordable units,” Won said Tuesday, before the vote. Construction on the project is expected to last about 10 years, according to the developers, who have yet to specify when work will begin.

The New York Times ; The Real Deal ; Patch

2. U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain ruled Monday that city’s Department of Corrections submit a report next year disclosing data related to violence on Rikers Island and said the information would remain confidential. Swain’s ruling comes after a group of public defenders demanded the city make public incidents of violence in the jail complex. However, the facility’s court-appointed monitor, Steve J. Martin, requested the document remain private to “avoid misinterpretation or the dissemination of incomplete or confusing information.” The report is scheduled to be completed by Feb. 13, and will include the number of officers who are on sick leave and data on violent incidents against staff members and incarcerated people.

Patch

3. Mayor Eric Adams signed a bill Tuesday for legislation aimed at supporting survivors of domestic violence, but would not immediately commit to the amount of funding that Queens City Council Member Tiffany Cabán is seeking for a new program. The program would work to offers micro-grants to survivors of domestic violence that can be put towards paying for housing, medical and legal expenses. “This first in the nation piece of legislation, put forth by a city,” Cabán said. “This grant program, this low-barrier, life-saving and urgently accessible grant program will directly address one of the most significant barriers survivors face in leaving dangerous situations.” Cabán estimated that the city would have to provide a minimum in $3 million in funding for the program to be…