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Q&A
Commissioner Goodridge's concerns about the City of Yes zoning proposal
0:57:26
ยท
154 sec
Commissioner Leah Goodridge explains her reasons for voting against the City of Yes zoning proposal, focusing on affordability concerns and the proposal's approach to housing issues.
- Criticism that the affordability component of the plan was insufficient
- Concern that the plan relied too heavily on private market solutions
- Rejection of the idea that simply building more housing solves affordability issues
- Argument for more proactive government involvement in creating affordable housing
Keith Powers
0:57:26
Are you proposing that we take the suburbs out of that formula or that we take oh, we Got it.
0:57:32
Yes.
0:57:34
Got it.
0:57:36
I wanna talk about CDBS.
0:57:38
How did you I think you voted against CDBS or you just supported it?
Leah Goodridge
0:57:42
I voted against it.
Keith Powers
0:57:43
You voted against it.
0:57:44
Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts and reasoning on your vote for that?
Leah Goodridge
0:57:51
There were lots of reasons why I voted against it, I will focus on affordability.
0:57:57
This is a housing plan and as I described before, the main well let me back up and say that I'm a very public facing commissioner, so I'm out in the community, I'm talking to people, and the main thing that people say to me when they say oh you're a commissioner, what about housing connect, those apartments on there, what's the city doing about affordability?
0:58:20
So now we have the city of Yas in a housing plan and most people are expecting as as am I for it to focus on affordability, but the affordability piece was I would say probably the smallest piece.
0:58:33
The affordability piece was more of a preference of if you're a developer and you want to build additional units and that part has to be affordable.
0:58:45
I thought that the other parts of the plan, you know, often we have this phrase in urban planning, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
0:58:53
I didn't think that the rest of the plan really made up for that very small piece.
0:58:58
It's not for me really a housing plan.
0:59:02
If we are going to have the end result of building housing everywhere then we do need more safeguards for that housing to be affordable.
0:59:10
One of the things that I strongly reject is the notion that affordability is simply addressed by building more housing, that the city itself doesn't need to do any more than that, just build housing and that takes care of affordability.
0:59:25
That is a proposition that is based on the private market and I don't feel like it's acceptable for the government to accept that.
0:59:34
The many things, especially that's going on in the city where rent stabilization is being attacked, where, as I just described, we're not building enough deeply affordable units that the government can be proactive about.
0:59:48
So I don't feel like the I think that one of the under the undergird of City of Yes is build more housing and that is the actual affordability piece, and I just didn't feel like that was acceptable.
Keith Powers
1:00:00
Thanks.