PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Daniel Golliher on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity
8:38:51
·
126 sec
Daniel Golliher, an adopted New Yorker originally from Indiana, testified in support of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal. He emphasized the need for increased housing supply to address the city's housing crisis and drew parallels between current concerns about the proposal and historical resistance to major infrastructure projects like the subway system.
- Golliher argued that New York City needs hundreds of thousands of new housing units to meet current demand.
- He urged the council to pass City of Yes in its entirety, comparing it to past bold actions that led to significant improvements in the city.
- Golliher addressed concerns about infrastructure impact, noting that similar concerns existed during past major projects like subway construction, which ultimately benefited the city.
Daniel Golliher
8:38:51
Hello.
8:38:51
My name is Daniel Gullinger.
8:38:53
By day, I teach classes on New York City Government, but today, I'm here to speak as a happy advocate of the city's future.
8:38:59
I'm also an adopted New Yorker.
8:39:00
What E.
8:39:01
B.
8:39:01
White once called the 3rd New York.
8:39:02
I originally grew up on a farm in Indiana, and I'm one of millions who come here to live life on their own terms, seek opportunity, and contribute to the greatest city in the world.
8:39:11
Members of the council, thank you for having me.
8:39:13
And council member, Henif, who isn't here at the moment, thank you for your earlier remarks, welcoming people to this city regardless of their point of origin.
8:39:20
New York City has a housing crisis fundamentally driven by lack of supply.
8:39:24
To meet current demand, the city needs hundreds of thousands of new units of all kinds.
8:39:27
To achieve this, the council should pass city of yes and its entirety as the first of many actions.
8:39:32
I'm quite hopeful it's changing, but if the prevailing political attitudes of the modern era were projected into the past, we never would have gotten the original subways.
8:39:39
The Brooklyn Bridge or almost any of the great public improvements for which the city is now known that it often funded unilaterally and upon which it relies today.
8:39:48
As you can imagine in the case of the subway, digging trenches up and down Manhattan along major thoroughfares wasn't popular with a budding landowners several of whom launched lawsuits to stop the subway construction, and yet we have subways.
8:39:59
And so, can't we have housing today?
8:40:01
Many council members have concerns about the impact of this text amendment on infrastructure, especially sewers, concerns that many people at the dawn of the 20th century had about subway construction which required a reconstruction of sewers, steam pipes, pipe galleries generally and other critical infrastructure.
8:40:17
Whatever reservations you feel today about allowing the city to build needed housing, your counterparts in the past have felt similarly and they chose to move forward at many crucial junctures to our great benefit today.
8:40:28
The city government of the past met fear and complication with action, bold action that birthed the subway between 1900 1940 and bold that accommodated population growth from 3,500,000 in 1900 to 7000000 by 1930.
8:40:41
They did all this with far less wealth technology and benefit of hindsight than we have today.
8:40:46
My hope for this council is that it will meet the ambition and energy of the government's past.
8:40:50
The one that largely built the city, the press passed in history.
Shaun Abreu
8:40:53
Thank you, George.
8:40:54
We have to we have to move on.
8:40:55
My apologies.
Daniel Golliher
8:40:56
Thank you.
Shaun Abreu
8:40:56
Cassandra O'Hern?
