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REMARKS
Leila Bozorg on tackling the complexities of the housing crisis through charter review
0:11:46
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3 min
Secretary Leila Bozorg expresses her honor to serve and emphasizes the severity of the housing and affordability crisis threatening the city's fabric.
She argues the issue is more complex than simple supply and demand, requiring interrogation of systemic factors and nuanced solutions for diverse housing needs across neighborhoods. Bozorg acknowledges recent progress like the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity and looks forward to examining how the charter can be harnessed to better address the crisis.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:11:46
Next, our secretary, Leila Bozorg, is New York City's Executive Director Of Housing.
0:11:51
Her experience includes serving as a commissioner of the New York City Planning Commission, as a deputy commissioner and chief of staff at HPD, the housing of, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and enrolls at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
0:12:06
Would you like me to make some remarks?
Leila Bozorg
0:12:08
Thank you, Richard.
0:12:09
I just wanna note that I'm really honored to serve on this commission alongside, my other commissioners, especially as each of you, has dedicated your lives and your careers to improving our city, and improving, the conditions for those that are often most impacted by our housing challenges, and our affordability crisis.
0:12:29
I know that, everyone here is very familiar with, the fact that our housing crisis and our affordability crisis really does threaten the very fabric of what makes us great as a city, that we've been home to people of all walks of life, of different races, ethnicities, family structures, identities, and importantly, a place where people of all incomes have been able to find a footing and a home to pursue their dreams.
0:12:52
You know, in the housing world, we often talk about the housing challenges by framing, how we as a city as a city has often been the victim of our own success, that because we're a place that people want to live and stay, where job growth has outpaced housing growth, we find ourselves in this simple supply and demand problem.
0:13:12
But I think that describing it solely as a simple supply and demand curve often overlooks the complicated origins of what drives our housing shortage, what sustains our housing shortage, and what exacerbates the inequities in our housing market.
0:13:25
And it can even mask the types of nuanced solutions that we need to ensure we're building a range of housing types at a range of affordability levels and in a range of neighborhoods to meet the varied needs of our fellow New Yorkers.
0:13:37
So I'm really encouraged that we're in a place where there's cross sector agreement, cross government agreement, cross institutional agreement that we have to interrogate every possible contributing factor to our housing and affordability challenges.
0:13:50
That's very much the spirit of, what under underlied the city's fair housing plan where we live NYC.
0:13:57
So I thank HPD for leading that.
0:13:59
It's very much the spirit of the speaker's fair housing framework.
0:14:02
So I really wanna thank speaker Adams for introducing that framework and her team for helping make it law.
0:14:08
And it's very much the spirit of what was laid out, in the examination and overhaul of our zoning resolution through the city of yes for housing opportunity.
0:14:17
And I wanna thank both mayor Adams and speaker Adams for spearheading that, owning it, and helping get it across the finish line.
0:14:24
And I wanna thank DCP for their bold vision, including chair Gerodnick for getting it done.
0:14:29
I'm really excited now that we get to examine, discuss, listen, learn from anyone who wants to lend their voice in this process about the ways in which the very structure of our government, its processes, its, operations as laid out in the charter, how it can be better harnessed to better address our housing crisis, our affordability crisis, and our fair housing obligations in the service of New Yorkers.
0:14:54
So I really thank may mayor Adams for tasking us with this responsibility, and I'm looking forward to working with everyone.