Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Barika Williams, Executive Director from Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development on comprehensive planning
0:24:26
·
5 min
Barika Williams advocates for amending the city charter to mandate comprehensive planning, shifting away from the current ad-hoc approach that reinforces inequities. She proposes a framework involving equity goals, clear targets set by a steering committee cascading down to community districts, robust community engagement, and alignment with city budgets.
- Williams represents the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) and the Thriving Communities Coalition (TCC).
- Comprehensive planning should integrate housing with education, transit, healthcare, and other sectors, centering racial, economic, health, and climate equity.
- She highlights current disparities: 10 community districts built more housing than the other 49 combined, and park access varies significantly.
- Specific proposals include fast-tracking 100% affordable projects and making the existing City Council fair housing plan enforceable.
- The goal is a proactive system benefiting all New Yorkers, not just some.
Barika Williams
0:24:26
Hi.
0:24:27
Good evening, everybody.
Dr. Lisette Nieves
0:24:28
That's my book.
0:24:29
Okay.
0:24:29
Evening.
Barika Williams
0:24:31
Thank you, chair Buery, and thank you commissioners for the opportunity to testify.
0:24:35
My name is Barika Williams.
0:24:36
I'm the executive director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development or ANHD, and we're a 50 year old nonprofit here in New York City, working with, many of the groups who are responsible for, nonprofit groups who are responsible for managing these affordable housing units across the city, but also supportive housing providers, community organizers, economic development, advocates, and direct service providers as well.
0:25:00
Our mission is to build, community power to win affordable housing and thriving equitable neighborhoods for all New Yorkers.
0:25:06
This is near and dear to our heart.
0:25:09
So we are also a member of the thriving and convener of the Thriving Communities Coalition, TCC, which is a citywide movement, of grassroots organizing advocacy and policy organizations, working specifically on something we have called comprehensive planning for a sir a long period of time.
0:25:27
We are what we're focused on is, changing the framework of how we think about planning, development, and investment here in New York City, instead of an ad hoc approach to planning that we've been using for years that we know doesn't effectively deliver for, many New Yorkers and most New Yorkers, but also reinforces our long inequitable practices as Vicky talked about and I will speak a little bit more about.
0:25:54
Specifically, what we're talking about for comprehensive planning is something that aligns and coordinates existing plans, has sets clear goals across the city, centers racial economic health and climate equity, and is intentional, robust, and representative including with of in community engagement.
0:26:14
Already has come up other issues.
0:26:16
So this isn't just a housing issue.
0:26:18
Inter intersects with education.
0:26:20
It intersects with transit.
0:26:22
It intersects with health care.
0:26:23
And so recognizing that all of these things need to be integrated when our planning for our city and planning for our neighborhoods.
0:26:29
So moving to a proactive approach, we would love, to talk with and, for the commission to consider advancing comprehensive planning, specifically amending the charter to mandate that New York City create a comprehensive plan that uses equity goals to establish clear, equitable targets, and empowers communities to then create local plans that feed into those targets.
0:26:54
So this is now we're starting with citywide equity goals, which we already have in the city council's fair housing plan to a certain extent, but that's only housing.
0:27:04
Then creating a comprehensive planning steering committee that then oversees the process of understanding how this then plays out across neighborhoods that says here's, our various different citywide targets for these, a variety of of topics and issues.
0:27:21
And then from that, the community district levels set targets that then have to feed into the citywide targets.
0:27:29
That way we are not in a situation where a community district is advancing its goals that are not in alignment with what we need overall as a city.
0:27:38
It would commit all 59 community districts to creating these plans, but then also ensure and require that our budgets, for land use, expense budgets, and capital budgets all to have to reinforce what is putting being put forward in the plan.
0:27:55
We are very conscious, very aware that we can't just say communities have to plan this and magically do this, nor can we say our agencies have to magically be able to execute on this.
0:28:07
We know that that one of the challenges I don't wanna re repeat too much of what Vicky said.
0:28:12
But for example, 10 of New York City's, 59 community boards have built more than the other 59 49 combined.
0:28:22
Right?
0:28:23
So for example, Bronx C D 1 with almost 11,000 units, in comparison, to Manhattan CD 8, which is less than a thousand.
0:28:35
Right?
0:28:35
So this is the delta that we're looking at, and we see the same thing show up in non housing issues.
0:28:40
So Manhattan Community District 2, West Village, SoHo, where a % of the residents are within walking distance of a park or open space in comparison to Queens, Community District 13 out by the Nassau border where only 38% are in walking distance, so across all of those.
0:28:55
As a part of some of the ways to mechanize this, we would talk about, fast tracking a % affordable housing projects to move through some of these pipelines more quickly, hopefully reduce some of their cost and expenditures, making the existing fair housing plan, that is in section 16 a for the city council enforceable and have teeth.
0:29:19
Right now, it's a planning mechanism, but it doesn't have any enforcement mechanism.
0:29:24
And then also exploring, how we then feed in this to our our capital dollars and to dollars committed.
0:29:31
We're very aware.
0:29:32
We have been doing this for a long time that we don't wanna lock in agencies too in into too much of a structure that they're not able to respond to active, projects changing priorities on the ground.
0:29:44
But, also, we don't wanna create a framework that then agencies or administrations can ignore.
0:29:51
I wanna conclude by encouraging, thanking you all for your service and your time, and asking this commission to take bold, systemic steps that begin to move New York City away from, our current land use and planning and zoning frameworks and really to something that benefits all New Yorkers recognizing that the honest truth is our current systems and what we've been using for a long time have been benefiting some, but not all.
0:30:18
K.