REMARKS
Council member challenges necessity of City of Yes proposal and raises concerns about neighborhood impacts
5:26:59
·
86 sec
Council Member Holden argues that New York City is already building significant amounts of housing without the City of Yes proposal. He expresses concerns about the proposal's potential negative impacts on neighborhood character, infrastructure, and housing costs.
- Holden cites examples of areas with substantial new construction
- Raises concerns about flooding, electrical infrastructure, and neighborhood character
- Criticizes the administration's portrayal of the proposal's impacts
- Mentions issues with illegal apartment conversions in his district
Robert F. Holden
5:26:59
we are doing a great job in building new housing in New York City.
5:27:03
We're not like in the middle of the pack.
5:27:04
But let me anybody with eyes can look around what happened to Long Island City in the last decade.
5:27:10
Downtown Brooklyn has a tremendous amount of new construction.
5:27:14
Flushing, Bronx, Williamsburg, Greenpoint.
5:27:17
I can go on and on.
5:27:18
There's a tremendous amount.
5:27:20
There's entire areas have been transformed.
5:27:23
So to say that we haven't been building, we're building like crazy.
5:27:28
And again, by taking it and and really almost destroying certain characters of neighborhoods and saying it's not gonna be that bad, our flooding will be worse.
5:27:40
You should say that.
5:27:42
Because it will be on the city of yes.
5:27:45
Our electric infrastructure is going to be taxed even further by city of yes.
5:27:51
You won't say that though.
5:27:52
You're saying it's not gonna be substantially It's worse.
5:27:55
It's not gonna add to the problem.
5:27:57
It is gonna add to the problem.
5:27:58
It'll add to the also the inflated housing cost because developers have descended on us already in my district.
5:28:05
And, again, I offered to take you around and show you what they've done.
5:28:09
And they're converting one family attached row houses, which I tried to protect, the Bloomberg administration wouldn't.
5:28:15
And with community drives, and they're making them into 3 families.
5:28:19
And you have no plan how to get into these apartments and to see that they're illegal.
5:28:24
Thank you.
