Politico: Innovation QNS to get more affordable housing ahead of Council vote

NEW YORK — City Council Member Julie Won came out swinging against a hotly-contested rezoning proposal in her Queens district when it came before the body earlier this fall.

She detailed her staunch opposition in an email to colleagues, led a rally with activist groups fighting the rezoning and argued the plan to bring 2,800 new apartments to a swath of Astoria — most of them renting at market rates — would push longtime residents out of the neighborhood. Won, who wields significant power over the project under the Council’s land use traditions, demanded a substantial 55 percent of the new units be set aside for low- and middle-income households as a condition for her support.

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