Residents and CB7 say a satellite office is not enough as Willets Point, casino development reshapes the region
Northern Queens Wants a New Precinct — and the Clock Is Ticking
Residents and community leaders in Northern Queens are pressing Mayor Zohran Mamdani to follow through on a promise made under his predecessor to establish a new NYPD precinct in a rapidly developing corner of the city — and so far, they say City Hall is not listening.
Community Board 7, which covers Flushing, Whitestone, College Point, Malba, Bay Terrace, and Beechhurst, has for years pushed for supplemental police coverage beyond what the 109th Precinct can realistically provide. That precinct is headquartered in the southwest corner of the district — far from the northern neighborhoods it serves. The board says response times are already unacceptably long and will only worsen as major development projects add thousands of residents to the area.
A Promise Made, Then Left Unfulfilled
The demand for a new precinct was formalized when CB7 approved Phase Two of the massive Willets Point redevelopment project. As part of that approval, the city agreed to study the feasibility of building a new precinct. Then-Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD responded in 2024 by establishing a satellite location inside the police academy in College Point — a move CB7 Chair Chuck Apelian called a “stopgap measure” that addressed none of the underlying needs.
“The community needs a standalone police precinct that’s going to be located further to the north,” Apelian told the Queens Daily Eagle. “Those areas that really need to be serviced — and allow the 109th to take care of the majority of Flushing and everything to the south.” He also noted that the satellite precinct has seen its staffing fall, while the 109th has lost nearly 60 officers between the end of 2024 and the end of 2025.
Mamdani’s Budget: Silence on the Precinct
When Mayor Mamdani released his preliminary budget earlier in February 2026, there was no mention of funding for a new Northern Queens precinct. CB7 has not been contacted by the Mamdani administration, and City Hall did not respond to questions submitted by the Queens Daily Eagle about the precinct’s status. Meanwhile, at a budget hearing before Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, CB7 representative Mary O’Neill made the precinct the board’s number one capital priority. “We desperately need public sector safety equity for a very underserved community board,” she said.
The silence from City Hall is frustrating for people who believed the Willets Point deal carried a genuine commitment. “We didn’t ask for the moon, we asked for something that was within their scope to do, and they didn’t do it,” Apelian said. His frustration was echoed by State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, who joined him in sending letters to the lame-duck Adams administration in December 2025. Those letters went unanswered.
Growth Is Coming — Ready or Not
The stakes are not abstract. Beyond Willets Point’s planned housing and commercial development, two major casino projects are advancing in or near CB7’s footprint. Etihad Park and the Metropolitan Park casino complex are among the largest development proposals in modern Queens history. Bally’s casino is also under construction in the Bronx just across the East River. Each of these projects is expected to draw significant foot traffic and activity to an already-strained corridor.
Republican City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, who represents parts of Northern Queens, said she has little confidence a new precinct will materialize under Mamdani. “Under Eric Adams we were confident it could happen in his second term, under Mayor Mamdani it almost definitely will not,” she said. “At this point, I’m going to have to fight to keep our satellite precinct staffed.”
What Community Policing Research Says
Police coverage equity is a documented challenge in dense urban areas with rapidly growing outer-borough neighborhoods. The Vera Institute of Justice has examined how police resource allocation in American cities often reflects historical patterns rather than current population density, creating gaps in communities that have grown faster than infrastructure. Northern Queens fits that profile.
The Police Executive Research Forum has also documented the relationship between precinct coverage areas and response times, noting that larger geographic territories with narrow road networks — precisely the terrain of Northern Queens — consistently produce slower emergency responses. CB7’s demands align with evidence-based arguments for right-sizing police deployment to match community growth.
The Mamdani administration has stressed a broader vision for public safety that includes a new Department of Community Safety handling non-police calls. But community leaders in Northern Queens say that vision doesn’t address the gap left by an understaffed precinct covering too much geography. As construction cranes continue to rise over Willets Point, the question of who responds when something goes wrong in Whitestone or Beechhurst is becoming more urgent with every passing month.
CB7 says it has not given up. The board intends to keep the precinct at the top of every budget submission and public hearing until it receives a substantive answer from the administration. Whether that answer comes before the next wave of development brings more residents — and more 911 calls — to Northern Queens remains to be seen.
Residents can track community board activity and budget submissions through NYC Community Board Planning and the Queens Borough President’s Office.
