Corey Bearak, representing Queens Community Board 13, testifies against the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative. He reports that the board unanimously voted to reject the provisions of the initiative, citing concerns about the removal of traditional community review processes and potential adverse impacts on neighborhoods.

• Bearak argues that the initiative would weaken or render useless the charter-mandated community review provisions.
• He suggests that providing tools and resources to community boards for identifying suitable parcels for development would be a better approach.
• Bearak recommends fostering collaborations between government, community, and private/nonprofit sectors to achieve beneficial local development.

• Community Board 13 unanimously adopted a resolution recommending rejection of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity
• The proposal would remove traditional community board, borough president, and city council review of uses not permitted under existing zoning
• Charter-mandated community review protects neighborhoods from adverse impacts
• The city should provide tools and resources to community boards to identify appropriate parcels for beneficial local development
• The 'as of right' features would weaken or render useless the Charter-mandated community review provisions
• Suggests implementing tools through a community review process on a case-by-case basis instead of citywide
• Advocates for community-based collaborations for affordable housing and senior housing, similar to Long Island's smart growth initiatives

[EXPERIMENTAL]

Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?

I was not able to tie quotes from the testimony back to specific elements of the proposal. Check out another testimony here.

About this analysis:

This analysis is done by AI that reasons whether or not a quote from the testimony discusses a particular element of the proposal.

All the prompts and data are open and available on Github.

You can search for testimonies that mentioned a specific element in the table on the main meeting page.

When an element is explicitly stated in the testimony (e.g. "Universal Affordability Preference" or "UAP"), the analysis is accurate.

But the connection between a quote from the testimony and an element of the proposal is sometimes implicit.

In these cases, the AI might eagerly label a testimony as discussing a proposal when the connection is tenuous, or it might omit it entirely.