Nicole Young, Department of Education (DOE) teacher, on opposition to City of Yes and support for affordable home ownership programs
12:12:54
·
3 min
Nicole Young, a lifelong New Yorker and DOE teacher, expresses opposition to the City of Yes initiative, advocating instead for programs that support affordable home ownership like Mitchell-Lama. She argues that the focus on housing production does not necessarily lead to affordable housing and shares concerns about the ability of city employees to afford living in New York City.
- Criticizes programs like RAD-PAK for leading to increased rents and eviction rates
- Highlights issues with compliance and enforcement of existing housing regulations
- Suggests that addressing high rent burdens and changing legislation to prevent landlord abuses would be more effective than zoning changes
- Opposes the City of Yes initiative
- Advocates for affordable home ownership programs like Mitchell-Lama instead of luxury buildings with a small percentage of affordable units
- Criticizes the idea that increased housing production automatically leads to affordable housing
- Expresses concern about the ability of city employees (teachers, police officers, firefighters) to afford living in the city
- Points out issues with existing affordable housing programs like Camden Plaza's privatization and RAD-PAC's rent increases
- Highlights problems with developers not complying with public space requirements in exchange for tax abatements
- Argues that the city cannot keep up with building inspections
- Suggests that the housing crisis is due to high rent burdens and that legislative changes to prevent landlord abuses are needed rather than zoning changes
[EXPERIMENTAL]
Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?
- UAP
- ADU
- Small and Shared Housing
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
"The reason why I bring this up is because I actually benefited from a program offered by the city to become a teacher later in life called the New York City Teaching Collaborative. I think we should be doing more during this time of recruitment when we need more police officers, more firemen, more teachers. To be offering opportunities and gateways and pathways to programs like Mittalama instead of the disguise with the city of yes, that we're gonna create more luxury buildings, and then suddenly 20% are gonna go to affordable."
This quote indirectly references the UAP proposal by mentioning the '20% are gonna go to affordable' aspect, which aligns with the UAP's requirement of at least 20% affordable housing. The speaker is criticizing this approach, preferring other programs like Mittalama for affordability.
ADU
"And so the AUDs really are the new SROs."
The speaker mentions 'AUDs', which likely refers to ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). By comparing them to SROs (Single Room Occupancy), the speaker is indirectly discussing the ADU element of the proposal, albeit critically.
Small and Shared Housing
"And so the AUDs really are the new SROs. And despite what that woman just mentioned in the arts, I personally don't believe that SROs or the former tenements is what's gonna provide affordable housing."
The speaker mentions SROs (Single Room Occupancy) and tenements, which are forms of small and shared housing. Although the speaker is criticizing these housing types, this comment relates to the Small and Shared Housing 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.