PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Laure Travers on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity Proposal
3:30:22
·
120 sec
Laure Travers, a resident of the Lower East Side, expresses concerns about specific aspects of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity rezoning proposal. While supporting some parts, she urges council members to vote against four particular elements that she believes will lead to displacement and unaffordable housing.
- Travers specifically opposes the removal of sliver laws, the Universal Affordability Preference program, expansion of Landmark air rights transfers, and campus infills.
- She challenges the developers' argument that building more housing will lower costs, citing census data showing housing unit growth outpacing population growth without reducing prices.
- Travers emphasizes the need for council members to listen to residents rather than developers.
Laure Travers
3:30:22
DLCT council members.
3:30:25
I'm not ravaged from the lower side.
3:30:28
I have read carefully the rezoning proposal.
3:30:32
And while I like some parts of it, I am alarmed at others and ask you to vote know if they are part of the text.
3:30:42
1, the remover of the sliver loose.
3:30:47
2, the universal affordability preference program 3, the expansion of Landmark air rights transfers and 4, the campus infills.
3:31:02
All of these encouraged developers to destroy affordable tenant buildings, displacing their inhabitants, and small shops, to replace them with unaffordable larger buildings.
3:31:20
The developers say that the only way we would lower the cost of housing is by building more housing.
3:31:29
That's convenient for them to say.
3:31:32
But the past proves the contrary.
3:31:36
According to the US Census American Community Survey, since 2006, New York City's population has increased by a 121,000 people, a 121,000 people, while the number of New York City housing units has increased by 368,000 units.
3:32:03
368,000 units.
3:32:06
Please take a few seconds to ponder these two numbers.
3:32:10
Have the prices gone down?
3:32:13
No.
3:32:14
Actually, they have skyrocketed.
3:32:17
We have to stop listening to them, and and you have to to listen to us.
