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TESTIMONY

Elena Sytcheva on the City of Yes initiative and its potential to address New York City's housing crisis

14:11:33

·

107 sec

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Elena Sytcheva, a lifelong Brooklyn resident, testifies in favor of the City of Yes initiative, emphasizing its potential to provide much-needed affordable housing in New York City. She shares her personal experience as a child of immigrants and expresses concern about the current generation's inability to access affordable housing in the city.

  • Supports key aspects of the proposal including Universal Affordability Preference (UAP), optional parking, and transit-oriented development
  • Highlights the impact of rising living costs on young working-class families and their ability to remain in their neighborhoods
  • Urges the commission to approve the proposal in its strongest form, stressing the urgency of addressing the housing crisis
  • Support for the City of Yes initiative
  • Personal experience as a lifelong Brooklyn resident
  • Concern about the lack of affordable housing for the current generation
  • Friends and colleagues being forced to leave their neighborhoods due to cost of living increases
  • Support for creating permanent affordability through UAP
  • Support for making parking optional instead of required
  • Support for transit-oriented development
  • Belief that the proposal will provide much-needed affordable housing
  • Urging the commission to approve the proposal in its strongest form

[EXPERIMENTAL]

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

  • UAP
  • Parking Mandates
  • Transit-Oriented Development

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.

UAP

"I'm here because I believe this proposal will provide much needed affordable housing for New York. Is by creating permanent affordability through UAP"

The speaker directly mentions UAP (Universal Affordability Preference) as a means of creating permanent affordability, which is a key element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.

Parking Mandates

"making parking optional instead of required"

This quote directly refers to the proposal's element of removing parking mandates by making parking optional rather than mandatory for new developments.

Transit-Oriented Development

"and the common sense solution of transit oriented development"

The speaker explicitly mentions transit-oriented development as one of the solutions proposed in the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity initiative.


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?
Elena Sytcheva
14:11:33
Good morning.
14:11:33
Charity Rodnick and members of the commission.
14:11:36
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in favor of the city of ES initiative.
14:11:40
I also wanna acknowledge all of the hard work of the city planning staff on this proposal.
14:11:46
And today, this evening, this morning, at this hearing, My name is Elena Sacheva, and I am a lifelong Brooklyn resident of over 30 years.
14:11:55
I grew up in Mitchellama housing in sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and I currently rent in the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn CB 1.
14:12:03
I and it would be my preference to stay and raise a family here in this great borough.
14:12:09
My parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union and were able to remain in New York and work in the public service sector because of their access to affordable home ownership.
14:12:22
This allowed me to have wonderful cultural, educational, and career opportunities.
14:12:27
And I'm concerned that this is no longer a possibility for my generation.
14:12:31
My friends and colleagues are being forced to leave the neighborhoods they love because of significant cost of living increases.
14:12:37
This is especially true for young working class families of children.
14:12:40
We are all well aware of the severe housing crisis in New York City, and I will not repeat the data that has been cited by previous speakers on low vacancy rates and skyrocketing rents.
14:12:50
I'm here because I believe this proposal will provide much needed affordable housing for New York.
14:12:55
Is by creating permanent affordability through UAP, making parking optional instead of required, and the common sense solution of transit oriented development.
14:13:04
All of these solutions will help New Yorkers remain in the communities they love and will allow our great city to continue welcoming new residents.
14:13:11
I urge the commission to approve this proposal in the strongest form.
14:13:15
We cannot afford to wait.
14:13:16
Thank you for your time, and I commend you all for staying so late.

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