PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Renee Kinsella, Representative of 29th Street Association
5:24:43
·
124 sec
Renee Kinsella, representing the 29th Street Association, expresses concerns about the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal. She argues that the plan fails to guarantee affordable housing construction and preservation in their community, potentially allowing developers to build luxury housing without affordable units.
- Criticizes the plan for not addressing the preservation of existing affordable housing in their neighborhood (Rosehill and Kips Bay).
- Highlights the current trend of affordable units being replaced by luxury buildings with fewer, more expensive units.
- Urges the council to reject the proposal and adopt a citywide rezoning plan with affordability mandates, anti-displacement measures, infrastructure improvements, and community input processes.
Renee Kinsella
5:24:43
Thank you.
5:24:44
Thanks for the opportunity to speak today.
5:24:46
My name is Renee Kinsella, and I'm speaking on behalf of the 29th Street Association on the East Side of Manhattan.
5:24:52
We are concerned about the adoption of City of Yes for housing opportunity because it fails to guarantee affordable housing will be built in our community and further absolutely fails to preserve our existing affordable housing.
5:25:03
We've seen previous rezoning, some of which generated a large supply of market rate and luxury housing, yet did not alleviate the housing crisis.
5:25:11
So we're skeptical that this sort this time, some sort of trickle down supply side will provide the affordability that we seek.
5:25:18
We've been told that this plan includes specific affordable housing provisions, yet it appears what this means is leaving the incredibly important goal of producing affordable housing almost entirely up to developers to decide how much affordable housing will be built or whether any affordable housing will be built in our community at all.
5:25:36
And if developers choose to build all luxury buildings without a single unit of affordable housing, this plan will allow for that.
5:25:43
Even more concerning, the city of yes for housing plan does not have a provision for preserving the affordable housing that currently exists.
5:25:50
In our neighborhood, Rosehill And Kips Bay, we have a lot of natural affordable housing, older stock of brownstones and walk ups, and the neighborhood is really known as a place where people can afford their first apartment.
5:26:01
But what's happening now is that those affordable units are not being preserved.
5:26:05
Instead, they're being bought up and knocked down to create luck tree buildings that provide less units and more expensive so called affordable housing than the original buildings they replace.
5:26:14
Take a walk around our community and you can see the destruction of what remains of affordability.
5:26:20
City of Yest will add density to our neighborhoods, yet it does not address the very things that make our city livable, the light, air, and green space while taking away most of the community input and oversight.
5:26:31
So we The 29th Street Association urged the council to reject the zoning proposal and instead adopt a city wide rezoning plan that includes affordability mandates, anti displacement measures for current affordable housing, guaranteed infrastructure improvements, and community input processes.
