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Q&A
Rampershad's voting record on specific projects
0:37:36
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129 sec
Commissioner Rampershad explains his voting decisions on two specific projects: the Queens Innovation project and the 962 Franklin project in Brooklyn. He details his reasons for voting against these projects, highlighting concerns about affordable housing, community impact, and development scale.
- For the Queens Innovation project, Rampershad cited insufficient affordable housing and concerns about the proposed open space.
- Regarding the 962 Franklin project, he objected to the proposed height increase and questioned the developer's engagement with local stakeholders.
- Rampershad's explanations demonstrate his consideration of affordability, community needs, and appropriate scale in his decision-making process.
Justin Brannan
0:37:36
and this is related.
0:37:37
In your prehearing questions, you wrote about your vote against the Queen's resiliency project based on a lack of important information in the project summary.
0:37:47
Could you discuss that that applications and and your deliberations with your colleagues about the lack of a project summary?
Oudeshram “Raj” Rampershad
0:37:53
The the Queen's Innovation That one there was primarily because of night enough affordable housing for everything that they were getting because they were rezoning.
0:38:01
I believe it was 3 city blocks, roughly, near Long Island City, Sunnyside area.
0:38:07
And, you know, they were creating open space for the community, but I also wasn't comfortable with the type of open space that it was.
0:38:16
I know that they they they had multiple designs come up, and at the last second, 11th hour, they came up with another design based upon feedback or a pushback I know some of the commissioners had, but at that point when I saw it, it was you know, it says you could have done this earlier in the process.
0:38:33
So for that, it was that's one of the reasons and the a the affordable number of affordable that their proposal was not, from my opinion, something I thought they could have gone higher with the numbers on that one.
0:38:47
The most recently, the last one we just voted vote I voted against was 962 Franklin, which is in Brooklyn across the street from Botanical Gardens.
0:38:55
That one there, they were proposing it was R Six Zone.
0:38:59
They were going for R Eight A Fourteen Stories Across the Street.
0:39:02
I wasn't comfortable with the height.
0:39:04
I also wasn't comfortable with the in terms of the the feedback we were getting from the applicant in terms of his stating
Gale A. Brewer
0:39:13
that
Oudeshram “Raj” Rampershad
0:39:13
he was meeting with all the local parties.
0:39:15
So that one I felt yeah.
0:39:16
I didn't feel it was right.
0:39:18
So I I actually the the agency came up with 3 different scenarios, and I had to say the r 7a was probably more equivalent to it.
0:39:25
It was lower 10 stories, which wasn't casting.
0:39:28
And that when there was cat about casting the shadow, but it was also about a number of affordable units and what was really affordable.
0:39:35
And that community, they're looking for more affordable housing and a developer I felt was doing the minimum.
0:39:42
At that point and not really going above that.