Q&A
Council Member Brewer questions Commissioner Rampershad on affordable housing and zoning challenges
0:42:23
·
126 sec
Council Member Gale A. Brewer engages in a discussion with Commissioner Raj Rampershad about the challenges of creating affordable housing in dense urban areas, particularly focusing on the differences between Manhattan and Queens. Brewer questions whether the City of Yes proposal can be shaped to include more affordable housing options without solely relying on increased building height.
- Brewer highlights the need for integrating affordable housing in transit-rich, school-rich locations.
- The conversation touches on the limitations of current zoning plans in addressing housing needs.
- Rampershad acknowledges the difficulty in finding solutions but emphasizes his commitment to pushing for more affordable housing in development projects.
Gale A. Brewer
0:42:23
Just so you know, all five boroughs are concerned about infrastructure.
0:42:26
I just wanna point that out.
0:42:30
My question, I certainly agree with you.
0:42:32
Not everybody does on the affordable housing.
0:42:34
I represent a very, very dense perhaps a dentist in the United States of America on the upper west side.
0:42:39
And so the question is, how do you both get affordable housing without just getting height?
0:42:46
And it seems to be that in Manhattan, for my many years.
0:42:50
Nobody wants to give anything but a small percentage for more F AR, etcetera, as opposed to come on, some subsidies, some something else that brings more affordable to transit rich, school rich, you know, convenient location, which needs to be integrated.
0:43:09
So those conversations don't this is a zoning plan.
0:43:13
It's not a housing plan, the city of it.
0:43:14
I mean, just call it what it is.
0:43:17
So my question is, Do you see any way of making it a housing plan?
0:43:20
Do you see any way of having some more discussions maybe out of silos?
0:43:25
I don't know.
0:43:26
You you to your credit, you have articulated, I think, both what the community wants to hear in terms of somebody who's representing them, and also some of the concerns that we're all trying to face.
0:43:38
Queens in Manhattan are very different.
0:43:40
So I I don't wanna we have different problems.
0:43:43
We all need the housing.
0:43:44
So I don't know.
0:43:44
Is there any way that it could be shaped to have more affordable housing?
0:43:49
That question may not be answered, but I don't know.
Oudeshram “Raj” Rampershad
0:43:51
Yeah.
0:43:52
Yeah.
0:43:52
I I don't know.
0:43:53
I have really answered that other than this.
0:43:55
I always ask the question.
0:43:57
Is this the most that we can get out of them, meaning the applicant?
0:44:00
Because I do see that a lot and it's something that bothers me.
0:44:04
So I really do wanna see more more housing, more affordable housing is created, and I really don't have the answer to that.
0:44:14
But but I understand that and I completely agree that there's gotta be a better way or to get that, to create that, that
Gale A. Brewer
0:44:23
Thank you.
Oudeshram “Raj” Rampershad
0:44:27
Thank you.
