QUESTION
Will DCP commit to regulating last mile facilities and addressing their negative impacts on communities?
1:43:03
·
4 min
Council Member Avilés presses DCP Director Garodnick on the need to regulate last mile facilities in the zoning resolution update.
- Avilés says her community has been urging action on last mile facilities for over 5 years due to their polluting impacts
- She asks Garodnick to commit on record to implementing tools to define and regulate these facilities
- Garodnick acknowledges last mile facilities are a challenging policy issue that needs a solution
- He commits to exploring zoning and other policy tools to address the problem, in partnership with other agencies
- Avilés notes the city has the tool of special permits but has chosen not to use them proactively before facilities are sited
Alexa Avilés
1:43:03
Chair in particular, I wanna thank you for addressing in your statements the need to regulate last mile facilities.
1:43:10
It is something I have been talking about for 2 years, and my community has been screaming about for well over 5 years.
1:43:18
So, you know, in this in this opportunity that you're creating to look at the zoning laws certainly We welcome some of those updates.
1:43:29
Nevertheless, what is clear has been a full omission of the action short last mile facilities, the distribution sites, the large mega facilities where We're talking about the end of the line, but seem to have ignored entirely the last mile facilities.
1:43:51
As as you know, Commissioner Garadek, we've sent you a letter assigned by more than half of the council members that stresses the need to address this particular issue.
1:44:01
We know the the climate impacts, the polluting impacts, the thousands of additional diesel fuel trucks in our community.
1:44:09
And yet no portion of this has addressed that in earnest.
1:44:15
So I'd like to know commissioner if If you will if we have your commitment on record to address this issue, to actually implement tools, to define last mile facilities.
1:44:32
It's interesting that the mayor just released a report the mayor's office of climate environmental justice released a mapping tool, which talks particularly about last mile facilities in yet.
1:44:44
There is no definition of these.
1:44:45
So it's curious how they've been able to define impacts, and yet here we are at DCPA unable to define impacts and address this squarely within the zoning update.
1:44:58
So I'd love to hear your response around these requests related to Last Mile, the need for regulation, special permitting tools, and then I have a couple other questions.
Dan Garodnick
1:45:12
Sure.
1:45:12
Thank you, council member.
1:45:14
First, let me acknowledge that last mile facilities are a challenging topic.
1:45:21
For us as a matter of policy and also for the one as a as a policy matter that affects all New Yorkers, especially many of your constituents.
1:45:35
And in context where large warehouses are generating large amounts of trucks and your residences schools and other sensitive areas, I think it is time for us to work on a solution here.
1:45:51
The nature of how New Yorkers obtain goods and daily necessities, it's changed significantly in recent years.
1:45:57
Continues to evolve, and we are certainly ready to work with you and your colleagues and our colleagues and other agencies to understand what the right policy tools are, whether in zoning or through other programs.
1:46:12
I like to think that zoning is all important, but it is a limited tool.
1:46:17
That, you know, regulates buildings, not vehicles.
1:46:21
But we can certainly commit to turning over all land use possibilities, working with our partners at the city and state, and, of course, our partners at DOT and EDC and other agencies that are presently working on this issue as well, including through the Redhook truck and traffic study, EDC and DOTs water based delivery tools that they're exploring and other cleaner delivery methods.
1:46:49
You have my commitment to continue to work with you on that.
Alexa Avilés
1:46:53
Thank you.
1:46:55
I'll just point out, we do have the tool of a special permanent and often where after the fact the facilities have been sited, the impacts are done, the community is stuck where the concentration of polluting infrastructure and we have no way to address it.
1:47:09
So we have we have a clear tool.
1:47:11
We have had a clear tool here, but we haven't had decided to use them.
1:47:16
So just pointing that out for the record, but we look forward and expect in earnest this to be addressed because it is a severe oversight within this entire context.