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Cormack McKay, visitor and possible future resident of NY, on addressing vacant properties and promoting housing conversion in NYC
14:23:08
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3 min
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Cormack McKay, a visitor to New York City, supports the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal with additional amendments. He argues for measures to combat deliberately vacant properties and promote housing conversion, citing the negative impact of empty buildings on the city's housing market and economy.
- Proposes a vacancy tax or fine of $1 per square foot per day or 100% of expected rent for empty properties
- Suggests incentivizing prefabrication and off-site construction methods for new developments
- Recommends converting vacant offices and commercial properties to emergency residential or tourist accommodation within 30-90 days
- Support for the City of Yes proposal with additional amendments
- Concern about deliberately leaving property empty and its negative effects on the city
- Proposal for a vacant property tax or fine of $1 per square foot per day or 100% of expected rent
- Suggestion to encourage rapid renovation and development of empty sites
- Promotion of prefabrication and off-site construction methods
- Proposal for a citizen reporting program for vacant properties
- Suggestion to convert vacant commercial properties to emergency residential or tourist accommodation within 30-90 days
- Recommendation for short-term tourist accommodation in buildings not suitable for long-term residential use
[EXPERIMENTAL]
Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?
- Residential Conversions
The following are AI-extracted quotes and reasoning about which elements of the proposal were discussed in this testimony.
This is a quick, close approximation. Occasionally, the connection between a testimony's transcript and specific elements of City Planning's proposal is tenuous.
Read about this AI-generated analysis here.
Residential Conversions
"Office vacancy rates are expected to rise from the current 1 in 5 to 104 by 2026 according to Moody's, and they can resonate using their units probably could be much higher than the estimate of 100,000 or 1.4 as reported."
This quote indicates that the speaker is discussing office vacancy rates, which relates to the residential conversions element of the proposal. The high vacancy rates mentioned support the idea of converting unused office space into residential units.
"All sites, offices, and commercial property should be converted to emergency residential at accommodation, our tourist visitor accommodation within 30 days of becoming vacant, with allowances of up to 90 days for refurbishment in a 15 year period."
This quote directly addresses the concept of converting office and commercial properties into residential or tourist accommodations, which aligns with the residential conversions element of the City of Yes proposal.
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.
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