PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jesse Lang on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity
11:10:54
·
130 sec
Jesse Lang, speaking in his personal capacity, strongly supports the City of Yes proposal. He shares his experience of living in New York City for nearly a decade and emphasizes the urgent need for more housing options in the city.
- Lang highlights the issue of parking minimums as a problem that City of Yes will address
- He urges the council to pass the proposal as a package, despite some criticisms that it doesn't go far enough
- Lang mentions the need to build 250,000 apartments just to catch up with the current housing shortage
Jesse Lang
11:10:54
Hi.
11:10:55
Thank you so much, and thank you all for sticking out this marathon day and for giving us all the opportunity to speak.
11:11:02
My name is Jesse Lang.
11:11:03
I I wear a lot of hats I just wanna be clear that I'm here in my personal capacity today.
11:11:09
And I strongly support city of yes.
11:11:11
I lived in New York City for about a decade, almost 10 years coming up this winter.
11:11:17
And I like so many other people who came to New York before me and have come after me, I came here because I wanted greater economic opportunity and the the many promises that New York City has to offer for young people and really people of all ages looking for looking for something bigger.
11:11:40
It was actually in similar circumstances that my great grandfather came here at the end of the 100, literally riding on the bottom of a freight rail train where he almost died.
11:11:52
But similarly, because he was looking for more opportunity, he came here.
11:11:58
In the decade that I've been here, I have lived in about 5.
11:12:02
I lived in 5 different apartments.
11:12:04
I've lived a lot of different times.
11:12:08
And one thing that I've seen in my time here is and that I've really grown to appreciate is how much more housing we need and how people who are looking for housing in New York City really just don't have enough options.
11:12:21
There are a lot of things that are that are making that true.
11:12:24
Parking minimums, are really a big problem that I think City of YES will address.
11:12:31
But really, I think, you know, we need this to pass as a package.
11:12:35
And I'm really looking forward to seeing it done.
11:12:37
For the people that are saying that this isn't enough, that we need to do more that, you know, there are problems with this, that it doesn't go far enough in terms of affordability.
11:12:48
I ask you to consider that right now we need to build a quarter 1000000 apartments just to catch up with the lack of the lost productivity, and we need to have so much further to go in the future.
11:13:02
So I urge you to say yes.
11:13:03
Thank you so much.
