REMARKS
Kalman Yeger explains his vote against City of Yes zoning changes
1:55:39
·
176 sec
Council Member Kalman Yeger explains his vote against the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning text amendment and related legislation. He argues that zoning changes should be made community by community, not through citywide mandates, and expresses skepticism about the $5 billion housing investment plan.
- Yeger votes no on LU 181, Resolution 689, Intro 1127-A, and Intro 1128-A
- He abstains on M 79 and Resolution 688 regarding the appointment of the Corporation Counsel
- Yeger criticizes the $5 billion housing plan as "phantom" money that is not budgeted or appropriated
Kalman Yeger
1:55:39
Madam president, may be excused to explain my vote?
Amanda FarÃas
1:55:42
Yeah.
1:55:42
Mister Johnson.
Kalman Yeger
1:55:43
Thank you very much.
1:55:46
Well, my time is, almost coming to a conclusion here.
1:55:51
Hold your applause.
1:55:53
You know, I, the last, 6 years, 11 months, 5 days, I've had the privilege of sitting in the same seat and, had a chance from time to time to look up at the top in president Lincoln's words, a government of the people, for the people, for the people.
1:56:10
And, you know, I think about that.
1:56:14
We are representative of the communities that we serve, and we're here, and we are of and by the people, but we're also supposed to be for the people.
1:56:22
It's for the people that we represent.
1:56:24
And today as I sit here, the 3 council members who represent parts of the district that I will be serving when I travel a little bit North all voted no today.
1:56:35
They come from very different and diverse political backgrounds and parties, but they all voted no along with myself and it's 4 of us, and it's because we know our neighborhoods.
1:56:45
And we know that you can't build your communities by building us together with the rest of the city.
1:56:53
This can't be done.
1:56:53
I've said this many, many times.
1:56:56
We the idea that we don't build housing because we didn't pass city of yes is just not truthful.
1:57:01
As madam speaker indicated earlier, just in the last couple of years, we've passed and built, or approved 27,000 units of housing here in this council.
1:57:09
Thousands of units of housing get built every single year.
1:57:13
And at every single meeting of this body, we approve zoning changes.
1:57:17
We can approve zoning changes when they're done intelligently in consultation with our community, where the council member can go and look at the plot of land and say that makes sense or that doesn't make sense.
Adrienne E. Adams
1:57:27
That's how
Kalman Yeger
1:57:27
you build your city.
1:57:28
You do it by community.
1:57:30
Community by community by community.
1:57:32
Not a bunch of folks come down to lower Manhattan and decide by fiat how the rest of the city's gonna be.
1:57:38
I can't vote yes on something that's going to, in my estimation, destroy the city.
1:57:43
I do have renewed faith in humanity though that so many of my colleagues do believe that $5,000,000,000 is actually real.
1:57:50
It's phantom because it's not budgeted.
1:57:53
It's not allocated.
1:57:54
It's not appropriated.
1:57:55
That's why it's phantom.
1:57:57
So I vote no on in, l u 181 resolution 689 as I am required to do by the people who hired me to be in this body.
1:58:08
I vote no on intro 1127, 1128, and I will abstain on M 79 Reso 688.
1:58:16
While I do understand that, attorneys represent the interests of their clients and they take guidance from their clients, in that case in this case, the administration, I I can't give the corporation counsel my, I vote, in light of my fundamental disagreement with the legal positions that she's taken.
1:58:34
Thank you very much, madam president.
