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Q&A
Council Member Brannan's concerns about homeless shelter versus affordable housing development
0:35:25
·
85 sec
Council Member Justin Brannan expresses concern about the current state of housing development in New York City. He notes that it appears easier and quicker for developers to build homeless shelters than affordable housing, potentially undermining the city's housing goals.
- Brannan highlights a situation in his district where developers choose to build homeless shelters on vacant lots due to faster processing and subsidies.
- He emphasizes the need for more housing to address the homelessness crisis, rather than just building more shelters.
- Brannan questions why the process for building affordable housing is so much slower and asks what HPD is doing to address this issue.
Justin Brannan
0:35:25
contribute to the point of And this is something I've written about with one of my colleagues.
0:35:31
It definitely seems that right now it's easier and quicker for a developer to build a homeless shelter than to do affordable housing.
0:35:44
I have a situation in my district.
0:35:46
I've heard from many of my colleagues where it's a vacant lot.
0:35:50
So it's blue sky.
0:35:51
They can build whatever is needed.
0:35:54
But they decide to build a homeless shelter because they can get the subsidy process and everything process far years quicker than HPD.
0:36:02
And a developer doesn't want to sit on a vacant lot paying taxes for three or four years.
0:36:07
So they're going to say yes to build a homeless shelter.
0:36:10
We need homeless shelters, but I don't think we're ever going to get out of our homelessness crisis if we're not building more housing.
0:36:16
So when you have a vacant lot, I'd much rather see affordable or supportive housing, any kind of housing built, rather than just continuing to build homeless shelters.
0:36:27
But right now I'm worried that we're undermining our own housing goals by making it easier to build homeless shelters for developers who are agnostic.
0:36:35
They'll build whatever you want them to build, but if it means getting paid tomorrow versus getting paid four years from now, well which one are you going to do?
0:36:42
Why is it so much easier for a developer to do a homeless shelter than to build affordable housing?
0:36:48
And what is HPD doing to close that gap?