Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump met at Gracie Mansion on Sept. 21 to discuss a possible plan to build thousands of homes over the Sunnyside Yard train tracks in Queens. The meeting lasted roughly an hour and was their third meeting, but their first at Gracie Mansion.
Mamdani said the meeting arose from an invitation he extended to Trump during a private conversation some time ago, and that he hoped to use the discussion to advance his affordability agenda. The visit came as the United Nations General Assembly was underway in New York City.
According to The New York Times, the mayor described the discussion as “wide-ranging,” saying it “touched on policing, immigration and the possibility of building an affordable housing development in Queens.”
Mamdani defended the meeting, saying he would “meet with anyone, work with anyone that could deliver for New Yorkers.”
The proposal would build the largest rail deck in the world over Amtrak’s Sunnyside Yard and add 12,000 units of housing on top. Mamdani said the project could also create 30,000 union jobs.
The rail yard is approximately 180-acres owned by Amtrak, and plans to build over it were never started. The most recent attempt in 2020 failed, which came shortly after the city’s Economic Development Corporation released a deck and affordable housing plan worth an estimated $14 billion.
Mamdani previously put the cost of a new platform at $21 billion, according to the Gothamist.
Trump also said the project would need financial support from the federal government.
“I would say it’s a very federal-oriented job,” he said. “You’re going to need a lot of federal approvals and probably some federal money to do it, but it has always been a great location.”
Mamdani said the two “agreed to set up a new level of that conversation between our housing and operations team at City Hall and the White House team.”
The two will move forward with discussions about the “technical and legal authorization of the construction of a platform” above the train yard, though Mamdani offered no development timeline.
“Sunnyside is a big job,” Trump said, adding that this idea has been around for decades.
However, not everyone supports the plan. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said he doesn’t think the project is the best way to increase affordable housing, according to The New York Times. Richards said the city would benefit more from attainable goals such as a plan to build 3,000 apartments at the site of Flushing Airport, which has been abandoned.
City Councilwoman Julie Won, whose district includes the rail yard, questioned whether the city is talking about “building housing on a deck 50 to 100 years from now,” according to CBS News. Won said she will believe the project is real “when I see the actual funding for it.”
