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TESTIMONY

Matthew Denys from Open New York on comprehensive support for City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal

13:33:38

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157 sec

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Matthew Denys, a resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn and member of Open New York, voices strong support for the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal. He emphasizes the proposal's potential to address the city's housing crisis through various zoning changes and affordable housing initiatives.

  • Denys specifically endorses elements such as Town Center zoning, lifting parking mandates, and transit-oriented development
  • He suggests the transit-oriented development aspect could be more ambitious, noting that historic apartment buildings in Flatbush would not be allowed under the current proposal
  • Denys urges the commission to approve the proposal and continue moving in this direction to address the urgency of the housing crisis
  • The city is in a deep housing crisis with high prices getting worse
  • The proposal is a step in the right direction, though not enough to fix the entire housing shortage
  • The proposal will allow more housing to be built, including affordable housing
  • Town Center zoning will support small businesses
  • Lifting parking mandates will help reduce car subsidies and traffic
  • The transit-oriented development element is limited but a good start
  • Current zoning restrictions prevent building apartment buildings similar to existing historic ones in Flatbush
  • More ambitious building near transit is needed to meet housing demands
  • The proposal should be approved to address the urgency of the housing crisis

[EXPERIMENTAL]

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

  • UAP
  • Town Center Zoning
  • 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

"including much needed affordable housing via the universal affordability preference"

This quote directly mentions the Universal Affordability Preference (UAP) element of the proposal and indicates that it will help provide affordable housing.

Town Center Zoning

"Beyond simply adding homes, the proposal has other positive impacts, such as the way that Town Center is zoning, will support small businesses that provide so much to our neighborhoods."

This quote explicitly mentions Town Center zoning and its positive impact on supporting small businesses in neighborhoods, which aligns with the proposal's intent for this element.

Parking Mandates

"Lifting parking mandates will also help. Right? Because the way that it currently works with the minimums that we have that subsidizes cars and increases traffic, which we don't know we have way too much of already in a city where less than half of households even have a car."

This quote directly addresses the removal of parking mandates, discussing how current minimums subsidize cars and increase traffic, which aligns with the proposal's intent to remove these mandates.

"But for now, removing these current mandates is an obvious risk stuff."

This quote further supports the speaker's agreement with removing parking mandates, which is a key element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.

Transit-Oriented Development

"And moving on to transit oriented development. The element in this proposal seems very limited to me, both in terms of it doesn't apply to many lots in the areas that are near transit, and the size of the buildings is pretty small."

This quote directly mentions transit-oriented development and critiques its limitations in the current proposal, indicating that the speaker is discussing this element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity plan.

"Going beyond the status quo of the last century, and it makes a lot of sense to focus on around the transit systems."

This quote further emphasizes the importance of focusing development around transit systems, which is a key aspect of the transit-oriented development element of 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.

↗ Why are there transcription and diarization errors?
Matthew Denys
13:33:38
Perfect.
13:33:38
Thank you.
13:33:39
Hi.
13:33:39
I'm Matthew Gonnaise, and I live in Flatbush Brecon.
13:33:43
And I volunteered with up in New York because the city is deep in a housing crisis as you well know.
13:33:48
High prices are normally getting worse, and that's why that's emotion to approve the full city of Yesor has an opportunity proposal with no additional conditions.
13:33:58
And while this proposal isn't big enough to fix our entire housing shortage on its own, it is a really nice set of steps that are all going in the right direction.
13:34:07
And all of the elements of this proposal are clear in 3 months till the zoning code and will allow and will allow a bit more housing to be built, including much needed affordable housing via the universal affordability preference.
13:34:21
Beyond simply adding homes, the proposal has other positive impacts, such as the way that Town Center is zoning, will support small businesses that provide so much to our neighborhoods.
13:34:31
Lifting parking mandates will also help.
13:34:33
Right?
13:34:35
Because the way that it currently works with the minimums that we have that subsidizes cars and increases traffic, which we don't know we have way too much of already in a city where less than half of households even have a car.
13:34:49
Given the negative impacts of that parking, I'd love to see further restrictions or fees or something like that for parking and denser areas near multiple subway lines.
13:34:58
But for now, removing these current mandates is an obvious risk stuff.
13:35:03
And moving on to transit oriented development.
13:35:07
The element in this proposal seems very limited to me, both in terms of it doesn't apply to many lots in the areas that are near transit, and the size of the buildings is pretty small.
13:35:17
The the buildings that would
13:35:18
be newly allowed.
13:35:21
And in fact, in my neighborhood of Flatbush, there are many historic apartment buildings that wouldn't be allowed to be newly built under the proposal because that six stories tall, even though they're very conceptual to the 33 story single family homes in the in the area.
13:35:39
They would still be too tall to be built under this proposal.
13:35:43
Yeah.
13:35:43
So to catch up with the number of homes that we need, we'll need to build a lot more.
13:35:47
Going beyond the status quo of the last century, and it makes a lot of sense to focus on around the transit systems.
13:35:53
I'm glad to see transitory to get a lot of representatives here.
13:35:56
And, well, this is a small small step.
13:35:59
It's a good one, and I'm glad to see it.
13:36:01
So I sincerely hope that the commission will approve this proposal and that our study will attending you to move in this direction and do so quickly to meet the urgency of our housing crisis and to make sure New York is open to all who want to live here.
13:36:14
Thank you.

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