Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
QUESTION
Did City Planning invite council members to community board meetings regarding proposals?
1:15:55
ยท
169 sec
Dan Garodnick, Director of the Department of City Planning, acknowledges that council members were not specially invited to community board meetings about the proposals, assuming they were already aware of the boards' agendas.
- Garodnick confirms no specific invitations were extended to council members for the community board presentations
- Council Member Lynn C. Schulman stresses the need for direct engagement with council members to facilitate effective proposal discussions
- Garodnick mentions efforts to brief council members separately, with mixed engagement
- The Department assumed council members were informed of community board meetings and agendas
Lynn C. Schulman
1:15:55
So let me start with So when you engage the community boards, did you get the did you talk to the council members about doing that with you?
1:16:07
Because by by by talking to us separately from the boards that probably split up what they were gonna come back with.
Dan Garodnick
1:16:19
Are you asking, did we specifically invite council members to the community boards that we were presenting?
Eileen Miller
1:16:25
Correct.
Dan Garodnick
1:16:26
No.
1:16:27
I think we our perception was that council members were well aware of the community boards and their agendas.
1:16:33
And so we did we did not issue a special invitation.
Lynn C. Schulman
1:16:36
But that's I'm just gonna tell you right now, that's not the point.
1:16:39
If you want us to engage with this proposal and it's huge, then you call us because the administration calls us about other things that they want and say, hey, we want to do this together.
1:16:50
Can we work together.
Dan Garodnick
1:16:51
That's a that is that is a fair point.
1:16:53
I will note that we started calling council member offices last summer to offer briefings and engagement on this.
1:16:59
So I'm just curious.
1:17:00
We're we're in April of 2024.
1:17:02
We started offering the opportunities for council members last summer.
1:17:05
Some took us up on it.
1:17:07
Some did not but we I under definitely understand your point.
1:17:09
We you you all are the ultimate deciders here of this, and so your ability to sink your teeth into this proposal is mission critical.
Lynn C. Schulman
1:17:17
Well, it's not it's not just that.
1:17:18
It's that we have relationships with the community boards, and we appoint some of them as well.
1:17:24
So that would have been a way to pull everybody together.
1:17:27
So I just I just wanna make the point.
1:17:29
I don't wanna belabor it.
1:17:30
The other thing is in the in the PowerPoint that you just presented to us.
1:17:35
You talked about the fact that 4 out of 5 of our presidents support this with conditions.
1:17:41
You didn't say how many community boards voted against it and how many voted for it?
Dan Garodnick
1:17:46
Yes.
1:17:46
I can tell you the answer to that though.
Sommay Jaijong
1:17:48
Okay.
Dan Garodnick
1:17:49
It was 30 against 214.
1:17:52
Mhmm.
1:17:53
And the reason I didn't mention it was because it is a little more complicated when you have a spreadsheet of 18 proposals.
1:17:59
So if you look at the ways community board weighed in on the 18 proposals, those who gave us a breakdown, which we very much appreciate.
1:18:07
So community board members listening to me.
1:18:09
I do wanna thank them for taking the time and the effort to grapple with 18 individual proposals.
1:18:17
Nearly all of them got more than 50% support from community boards that gave us the tally.
1:18:23
So the short answer to your question is 30 no 21 yes and of the 18, you know, nearly all of the proposals came in above 50%.
1:18:33
The 2 exceptions I will note for you were home occupations and commercial above residential areas where, as you saw, we made significant changes in response to community board concerns.
← Previous Chapter
What could the Department of City Planning have done differently to better engage with the community on this proposal, and will more resources be allocated for community engagement going forward?
Next Chapter →
How can the Department of Buildings improve enforcement with staffing challenges?