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Chair Dan Garodnick closes record-length hearing on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity

14:56:07

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3 min

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Dan Garodnick, Chair of the City Planning Commission, concludes a marathon hearing on the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative. He emphasizes the importance of the issue, thanks participants, and reiterates key points about New York City's housing crisis and the need for action.

Over 200 speakers participated in the hearing
Garodnick stresses the need for fact-based discussion and cites the 1.4% vacancy rate as evidence of the housing crisis
He reaffirms the goal of creating more housing in every neighborhood
The Chair encourages commissioners to focus on specifics and invites the public to review materials on the initiative's website
Garodnick concludes by wishing Housing Director John Mangin a happy birthday

The City Planning Commission heard from over 200 speakers, indicating the importance of the issue to New Yorkers.
New York City is facing a deep housing crisis due to insufficient housing supply.
The latest housing vacancy survey showed a 1.4% vacancy rate, the lowest since 1968.
The housing shortage impacts job hiring, affordability, and homelessness.
Evidence and academic consensus support the need for more housing of all types to address the crisis.
The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative aims to create more housing in every neighborhood.
Inaction is not an option in addressing the housing crisis.
The Department of City Planning is available to answer questions and provide specific information about the proposal.
The public can find materials about the initiative on the NYC.gov website.

[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.

↗ Why are there transcription and diarization errors?

Dan Garodnick

14:56:07

Before I just close this out, I just wanna see if there are any comments from commissioners.

14:56:14

Okay.

14:56:15

With that, let me just thank everybody for sticking with us through a record length city planning commission hearing.

14:56:24

By our account, we heard from over 200 speakers today, Clearly, this is an important issue for New Yorkers across the board, and we and the commission have a lot to consider in the coming weeks as we think about our votes and potential modifications.

14:56:39

I want to thank the staff of the Department of City Planning for being here early, early and lately.

14:56:46

And of course, to the the members of the commission, incredible stamina, really, really great great job today.

14:56:57

All around.

14:56:58

And I have weighed in throughout the day, so indulge me for 60 more seconds to correct the record because I think that it's important to have a fact based discussion here.

14:57:08

And here are just a couple of facts.

14:57:10

We have a deep, deep housing crisis in large part because we do not have enough housing.

14:57:15

The most recent housing vacancy survey conducted by the U.

14:57:18

S.

14:57:19

Census Bureau and our partners at HPD is a top quality survey unmatched in the country and it showed a 1.4% vacancy rate last year, the lowest since 1968.

14:57:29

We can also see the impacts of this shortage every day, anybody who has looked for housing recently can tell you it is too rare and what is available is too expensive.

14:57:40

Employers cannot hire because there's not enough housing for potential employees and of cars far too many New Yorkers sleeping shelters or on the street each night.

14:57:49

Evidence from across the country and world as well as the broad academic consensus shows that more housing of all types is necessary to address this crisis, including affordable end market rate housing.

14:58:04

In the face of this crisis, we have proposed City of Jasper Housing Opportunity with goal of creating a little more housing in every neighborhood.

14:58:11

When every neighborhood adds a little housing together, it can make a big difference in solving our housing crisis.

14:58:18

So we will discuss how to exactly achieve that goal over the next few months.

14:58:23

We've heard a lot of ideas today from those of us who want to go bigger.

14:58:27

To those of us who or those who want us to limit our changes to 1 or 2 pilot neighborhoods.

14:58:35

But one thing should be clear to everyone at this point in action is not an option.

14:58:40

And our solutions must be based on specifics.

14:58:45

In specifics.

14:58:45

That's our job as commissioners.

14:58:48

As I said a number of times today, we heard some objections that are not based in the actual proposal.

14:58:53

Department City planning team is available to answer any questions that commissioners have about these specifics and hopefully to clear up any confusion that may exist from today.

14:59:02

And I encourage any members of the public who are still watching to find a number of materials on our website atnyc.gov/ yes housing opportunity from an illustrated guide to the annotated zoning text itself.

14:59:16

So also we are now well past midnight July 10th, became July 11th, and I will note that July 11th is a very special occasion because our incredible and distinguished housing director, John Manganet his birthday on July 11th.

14:59:38

So just join me in wishing John a very happy birthday with with appreciation to him for everything that he and his team did to get us to today.

14:59:47

So thank you, John, and happy birthday.

14:59:48

And with that, at long last, let us adjourn this meeting.

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