PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Mark Young, President of South Midwood Residents' Association, on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity
12:59:00
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110 sec
Mark Young, representing the South Midwood Residents' Association in Brooklyn, opposes two aspects of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal. He argues that these changes would betray a previous successful rezoning agreement and potentially harm the neighborhood's character.
- Opposes the transit-oriented development proposal, which would allow 3-5 story apartments on short streets, potentially destroying the neighborhood fabric
- Objects to increasing the authorized FAR from 0.5 to 1, arguing it would lead to wealthy residents building large "McMansions" rather than creating affordable housing
- Urges council members to oppose these two pieces of the proposal
Mark Young
12:59:00
Okay.
12:59:01
Good evening.
12:59:02
My name is Mark Young.
12:59:03
I'm the president of the South Midwood Residence Association in in Brooklyn.
12:59:10
And our neighborhood, over 15 years ago, the administration at the time, negotiated a a rezoning agreement for Flatbush, which upzoned the neighborhood to allow for the creation of new residential units and protect the fabric of the community.
12:59:25
And by all accounts, it was a big success.
12:59:27
It's just in a brief period of time in this small neighborhood over 2000 new apartments and housing units were created.
12:59:35
Many of our neighbors feel that this new proposal is a complete betrayal of that agreement.
12:59:43
There's 2 particular areas that our neighborhood association is concerned about and poses.
12:59:48
1 is the transit oriented development proposal because it would allow for the creation and building of 3 to 5 story apartment buildings on streets that are less than 230 feet long.
13:00:00
This proposal seems to be based on a cookie cutter model based on Manhattan, where the short ends of blocks are multi use types of thoroughfares.
13:00:10
This is not the case in our neighborhood, and it would really destroy the fabric of our neighborhood.
13:00:15
The second proposal that's being considered that we oppose would increase the authorized SAR in our neighborhood from 0.5 to 1 And while this might seem to be great for building new affordable housing, in fact, the opposite is true.
13:00:30
What it's done in our neighborhood, in the neighboring areas, is allowed for single family wealthy residents to just build large McMansions on their properties, which is bleatly the opposite of the goal of the city of yes.
13:00:43
So I urge you and the other council members to oppose those two pieces of the proposal.
13:00:49
Thank you.
