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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Paula Z. Segal, Senior Staff Attorney from Take Root Justice
5:44:46
ยท
172 sec
Paula Z. Segal, a Senior Staff Attorney from Take Root Justice, provides testimony on various issues related to housing and community development in New York City. She discusses the city's lien sale, HPD staffing, community land trusts, and the need for dedicated resources and streamlined processes.
- Emphasizes the importance of monitoring outreach money distribution in the next year's budget
- Highlights the impact of HPD staffing issues and delays on community land trust projects
- Advocates for a dedicated capital fund for community land trusts and earmarked legal support
- Requests $3 million for a CLT initiative that was previously promised
Paula Z. Segal
5:44:46
Thank you so much council member.
5:44:47
Thank you to my colleagues and our clients and everybody else for being so organized.
5:44:52
I have maybe a little bit more of a kitchen sink approach here today.
5:44:56
Sorry.
5:44:57
So, I've just got a couple of different things.
5:45:01
So first of all, thank you so much for this council's partnership on shrinking the city's lien sale on on bringing back a foreclosure program that'll protect tenants and buildings in distress.
5:45:13
I hope that we will all work to keep our eyes on what happened to what happens to the outreach money that's supposed to be distributed in next year's budget.
5:45:21
I can't tell if it's in there or not.
5:45:22
I think it is.
5:45:24
So thank you for that.
5:45:25
We heard a lot this morning about HPD staffing and I want to underline a couple of things that were discussed this morning but they have huge impacts on my community land trust clients who are mid transaction, who are mid renovations, who are trying to hire and keep their staff and it's very hard to do that where there are such huge delays.
5:45:48
We heard a little bit about how OMB delays are going to be addressed.
5:45:57
Those are really important priorities because even where funding has been allocated theoretically without explicit OMB approval, no money is going to the contractors that are fixing the buildings.
5:46:08
We need to close that gap.
5:46:10
It would be a really powerful tool for community land trust and a really powerful way of really underlining support is to have an earmarked capital fund that's just for community land trusts both for preservation and for development.
5:46:27
We don't have that right now although there is an HPD CLT team.
5:46:33
That team is great, but they're only half the puzzle.
5:46:36
We are missing dedicated lawyers for that program.
5:46:41
So we have projects that are waiting for nothing.
5:46:45
They're waiting for an attorney to be assigned.
5:46:47
There's nothing actually happening on the project.
5:46:50
Can I ask your indulgence?
5:46:53
I know, it's long.
5:46:56
We heard a little bit this morning that HPD is filling some gaps with MWBE legal contractors.
5:47:02
If we could have some of those folks just earmarked for the HPD projects, just one person would make a huge difference.
5:47:10
Streamlining compliance, same issue.
5:47:11
It's an HPD staffing issues issue.
5:47:14
Jackie promised I would mention the CLT initiative, so here it goes.
5:47:17
We're asking for 3,000,000.
5:47:19
We were actually promised 3,000,000
Kenny Margarito Alvarez
5:47:20
last Thank you.
5:47:21
Topics applied.
Paula Z. Segal
5:47:23
Okay.
5:47:24
Great.
5:47:24
And then my final thing is about a really hidden secret that has made converting storefronts to offices and offices to storefronts really expensive for the agency and for my clients, and I would love a question about