Most Queens Voters OK With Amazon Tax Breaks, Poll Shows

QUEENS, NY — The critics of Amazon's planned move to Long Island City may be a vocal minority, according to a new poll. More than half of Queens voters support the hefty incentives the online retail giant is getting to open a sprawling new headquarters along the East River, the Quinnipiac University poll published Wednesday shows.

Some 57 percent of New York City voters surveyed — including 60 percent of Queens voters — support Amazon's move, which is expected to bring more than 25,000 jobs and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue.

"New Yorkers like good-paying jobs for people of all backgrounds," Eric Phillips, Mayor Bill de Blasio's press secretary, said on Twitter.

Voters across the city are divided on the nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and grants for Amazon included the deal, the poll shows, with 46 percent supporting them and 44 percent against them. But the package has stronger support in Queens, where 55 percent of voters back it and 39 percent oppose it.

The results contradict strident criticism of the deal from activists, labor groups and elected officials, who have cast it as a giveaway to a trillion-dollar corporation that shut out community stakeholders.

Some leaders in the fight against the deal dismissed the poll as "meaningless," saying it doesn't capture the outrage in Long Island City.

"This poll is trash and should be thrown away with the rest of today’s garbage," said Jonathan Westin, the executive director of the activist group New York Communities for Change. "No Quinnipiac pollster has spent real time on the ground in Long Island City and surrounding communities in recent weeks. We have."

While more than half of New Yorkers say they aren't worried about Amazon's move, 31 of those who do are most concerned about housing and 25 percent are most concerned about transportation, the poll says.

And 79 percent of voters overall say the city should be more involved in the process of bringing the company to Queens, according to the poll.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,075 New York City voters by telephone from Nov. 27 to Dec. 4. The poll has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

(Lead image: People protest Amazon's planned New York City headquarters at Amazon's Manhattan bookstore on Nov. 26, 2018. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)