REMARKS
Council Member Hanks' initial remarks on the City of Yes proposal's impact on Staten Island
2:21:38
·
103 sec
Council Member Kamillah Hanks opens by acknowledging the challenges of the City of Yes proposal for her district in Staten Island. She highlights the unique characteristics of her heavily residential area and the importance of considering borough-specific needs in zoning discussions.
- Mentions the creation of a task force involving local builders and civic associations
- Emphasizes the diversity within Staten Island's neighborhoods
- Points out potential inaccuracies in the presentation slides regarding Staten Island
Kamillah Hanks
2:21:38
Thank you, Chair Riley.
2:21:40
Thank you so much, commissioner Gradek.
2:21:43
The one thing I will say is that the city of yes has been extremely challenging.
2:21:49
As a council member who is representing the 49 District of Staten Island.
2:21:55
A lot of my questions and the things I want to address today are very specific to heavily residential areas such as 49th.
2:22:06
But the city of yes has started a very important dialogue in how we are living, how we are looking at zoning as a tool, how we are discussing the fact that we do need housing.
2:22:24
So one of the things that I was able to do was start a a task force, which involved two sides which one side is the actual stick builders who are building a lot of these developments in Staten Island.
2:22:37
They're not we would call developers.
2:22:39
They're stick builders.
2:22:40
And we have about 8 civic associations that represent different parts of the 49th district, and dare I say there are sovereign nations.
2:22:53
You know, each of these neighborhoods are are as different.
2:22:56
And I'm sure that my colleague, council member, Carl, will have his line of questioning in the same vein.
2:23:03
So Staten Island in particular is very different.
2:23:05
Even in your presentation, you had 2 slides that really looked at Staten Island in a very different way.
2:23:14
Slide 19 and slide 46, I believe.
2:23:18
Which were both kind of incorrect, but we'll get there.
2:23:21
So my first line of questioning is, how has the Department of City Planning and the administration focused on districts that are heavily residential.
