Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Discussion on City of Yes zoning proposal and affordability concerns
1:20:42
ยท
3 min
Council Member Brooks-Powers and Commissioner Goodridge discuss the City of Yes zoning proposal, focusing on affordability issues and the Commissioner's reasons for voting against it. Goodridge clarifies her stance on building more housing while emphasizing the need for genuine affordability measures.
- Goodridge supports building more housing but criticizes the lack of deep affordability in the proposal
- She expresses concerns about building on NYCHA campuses and the lack of resident input
- The Commissioner argues against the notion that simply building more housing will solve affordability issues without proper mandates
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:20:42
No and I appreciate that and every time I hear you speak about it, I think about the book also, How to Kill a City and when it talks about the incentives that are often given to developers, which I personally feel like should be flipped to allow people to be able to cross the hurdles to access the housing, which sometimes is a matter of down payments or, you know, what have you.
1:21:08
And it was refreshing to see your your response to the question when you talk about City of Yes in terms of the need for the deep affordability and how it wasn't really fully in alignment with the fact that you had to build more to get to access that deep affordability.
1:21:28
So because you know, I think you have voted no on it, how did you see an opportunity that may have been a missed opportunity to have created that deep affordability without having to necessarily build more to get more in terms of affordability?
Leah Goodridge
1:21:46
You know, I don't I don't I'm not against building more.
1:21:53
I what really what I voted against was the fact that the affordability piece itself it just was was very thin.
1:22:06
So if it had included something with deeper affordability, for example if we had a plan that said, yeah we're gonna build more housing and most of it, at least 50% for example, is going to be affordable, deeply and and real affordability, not 6 figure affordability, I likely would have voted for that.
1:22:27
That's a starting point, but there were all these other, you know, building on, you know, the the NYCHA part for example, there were a lot of questions about that, building on NYCHA campuses and then there being questions about whether first of all, the building on it, and then second of all the questions of what that affordability would even look like.
1:22:54
Then the third of course was whether NYCHA residents even had were were gonna be able to vote on this beforehand with all the issues going on with privatization.
1:23:02
I mean there were just a host of other different issues of City of Yes, but what I'm saying is I am not against building.
1:23:09
What I'm against is this idea that building in of itself, just the the building with no actual affordability mandates or no real affordability that you know, we can have affordability mandates, it can be 6 figures, and then that in of itself takes care of affordability.
1:23:26
That's what I'm against that notion for a city.
1:23:29
That's something for private developers to say.
1:23:32
That's a supply and demand argument.
1:23:35
They're the ones that are gonna be building the housing, so they have a vested interest in making this argument.
1:23:40
But that is for me unacceptable for a city to sort of take I think it's just a very passive approach in terms of addressing a housing crisis where if you walk five blocks anywhere in New York City, you will see homelessness.
1:23:53
So I don't think that this is I don't think that that was enough.