On March 20, 2025, the New York City Planning Commission (CPC) certified the city-led Jamaica Neighborhood Plan into public review. The plan would facilitate the creation of 12,000 new residential units, including approximately 4,000 permanently affordable units, and over 2,000,000 square feet of commercial and community facility floor area in and around Downtown Jamaica in Southeast Queens. The plan would also improve public space and address infrastructure capacity issues in the area.
“It is simply not acceptable for a neighborhood with such extraordinary transit access to be constrained by a lack of housing and investment,” Department of City Planning Director and CPC Chair Dan Garodnick said in a press release. “This plan will change that by providing housing, economic opportunities, and infrastructure upgrades that will help the neighborhood grow and thrive into the future.”
The Jamaica Neighborhood Plan would cover approximately 230 blocks within five distinct sub-areas in and around Downtown Jamaica in Community District 12 and a portion of Community District 8. The subareas are: the North Core, north of Jamaica Station; Industrial Areas, generally east and south of Archer Avenue and the adjacent Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tracks; Southern Corridors that include portions of Jamaica’s key transit corridors; the Downtown Core, generally in the areas around Jamaica Avenue and Archer Avenue; and the South Core, southeast of the Jamaica LIRR Station.
The plan would replace existing zoning districts and modernize zoning regulations to require affordable housing in new residential developments, promote industrial opportunities through higher FARs, and remove restrictive zoning regulations specific to the area.
“Everyone who lives, works, or plays here knows its limitless potential, which we fully believe the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan will unlock," said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. "This zoning framework will unlock just that in the form of thousands of new homes, new jobs, and new opportunities for local families and visitors alike.”
The Jamaica Neighborhood Plan consists of:
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A rezoning that would increase density of mixed-use developments in the Downtown Core while activating ground floor streetscapes, promote mid-density housing with ground floor retail in the North Core, introduce more housing and neighborhood-serving uses in the Southern Corridors that reflect the scale of existing development, encourage mixed-use development, including industrial development, in the South Core while creating public open space near the Jamaica LIRR Station, and introduce higher-density contextual manufacturing zoning districts in the Industrial Areas. All residential upzonings within the proposed rezoning would be mapped for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing.
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An expansion of the Special Downtown Jamaica District and modifications to its use, bulk, parking and loading, and urban design regulations including the exemption of certain public school developments from floor area, removal of restrictions on the size of certain retail establishments, and creation of a CPC authorization to increase floor area on certain zoning lots where public open space is provided.
DCP initiated the community engagement process for the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan in May 2023. The plan will now begin the approximately seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, during which it will be heard by Queens Community Boards 8 and 12, the Queens Borough president, CPC, and the City Council. We will monitor the Jamaica Neighborhood Plan as it advances through the public review process.