Juan Rivero from Village Preservation on opposition to City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning changes
1:42:37
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139 sec
Juan Rivero, representing Village Preservation, testifies against the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative. He argues that the plan's assumption that increasing unaffordable housing will make the city more affordable is flawed and diverts resources from where they are truly needed.
- Rivero outlines six specific provisions of the plan that Village Preservation strongly opposes, including increases in allowable size and height of market-rate developments, changes to floor area bonuses, and relaxation of air rights transfer regulations.
- He criticizes the plan for potentially reducing essential open spaces and green areas in dense urban environments.
- Rivero concludes that while they welcome thoughtful proposals to improve zoning, the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity fails to do so and moves in the wrong direction.
- Rejects the assumption that increasing unaffordable housing will make the city more affordable
- Opposes increasing allowable size and height of market-rate development in contextual zoning districts in Manhattan Community Boards 1-8
- Opposes increasing allowable FAR for purely market-rate development in voluntary inclusionary housing zones
- Against vastly increasing the area for air rights transfers from individual landmarks
- Opposes reducing rear yard requirements in medium and high-density zones
- Against allowing building on open space on campuses
- Opposes removing language from special district provisions
- Believes City of Yes for Housing Opportunity moves in the wrong direction for city development
[EXPERIMENTAL]
Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?
- Campuses
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.
Campuses
"5th, allowing building on open space on campuses where such space often provides an essential counterpoint and relief from the dense development around it. Development that was allowed into the first place only because of a requirement for the provision of open space."
This quote directly addresses the Campuses element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal. The speaker is expressing opposition to the idea of allowing building on open spaces within campuses, which is one of the key aspects of the Campuses element in the 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.