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Q&A
Commissioner Bozorg and Council Member Won discuss enforcing Fair Share for housing and overcoming local opposition
1:22:39
·
4 min
Commissioner Leila Bozorg commends Council Member Julie Won's pro-housing stance and asks how to put "teeth" into Fair Share concepts, like the Speaker's Fair Housing Framework, especially when local members oppose projects. Won emphasizes the critical need for voter education about land use processes and mobilizing pro-housing residents, acknowledging the challenge when anti-housing members are elected. She suggests a potential charter revision could mandate minimum housing thresholds per district, while acknowledging different districts have different capacities.
- Fair Share principles should apply broadly to housing, not just shelters.
- Education and community organizing are crucial to counter anti-development voices and support pro-housing members.
- A charter revision could potentially mandate district-level housing production targets to enforce Fair Share.
Leila Bozorg
1:22:39
The council member, thanks for your testimony, and truly, thanks for being a housing champion.
1:22:44
As you noted, I was taking a look at the New York Housing Conference scorecards here for amongst the top 10 in your district citywide of council districts that produce housing.
1:22:55
And I just wanted to ask a little bit more on this concept of fair share.
1:22:59
You noted it for shelters, for supportive housing.
1:23:03
Do your does your thinking on that extend to all kinds of housing?
1:23:07
And you also noted that it requires a strong speaker and a strong council member, especially in a world of member deference to push housing forward.
1:23:14
And the speakers introduced the fair housing framework, which I think gives us that framework and this idea that we should start naming what it looks like for different council districts to be producing their fair share of housing.
1:23:27
So I'm curious how you would put teeth on a framework like that and how that squares with the existence of member of deference.
1:23:34
Because as you noted, you've been successful in negotiating projects because you are supportive of housing, the speaker's supportive of housing, but we also have examples across the city right now of projects that installed because the local member doesn't support that awesome project.
1:23:49
I can think of a few off the top of my head.
1:23:50
And one one project that comes to mind that isn't even in ULURP, it's not doesn't have a clock project like Just Home.
1:23:56
There's no local support.
1:23:57
It's been stalled for
Julie Won
1:23:58
for a
Leila Bozorg
1:23:59
very long time.
1:23:59
I started in my current role over a year ago, and it's just been sitting.
1:24:03
It's an important supportive housing project that's had no ability to move.
1:24:07
So how do we square this idea of fair share with the existence of member difference where you
Julie Won
1:24:13
don't have support of council member?
1:24:15
Yeah.
1:24:16
It's clear to me that with our financial realities, we are not gonna be able to build a % affordable housing everywhere.
1:24:21
And in a district like mine where you have opportunity to build r eight, r nine, r 10, where you can get 60% affordable, 60%, market and 40% affordable vice versa, then it is worthwhile because of the units that you'll produce.
1:24:36
So I think there's two facets of very important things that we're not doing as a city.
1:24:40
One is education.
1:24:42
When I sit down with my community and explain to them for the first time what a neighborhood rezoning is and how it differs from a ULURP, how you instead of sixty days community feedback, you're going to have more than a year where I'm gonna give you 13 town halls, focus area meetings, two two surveys, two mailers, three canvassing rounds.
1:25:00
Then they start to realize, like, okay.
1:25:02
So this is not how it works.
1:25:04
But there's a huge gap of of of understanding.
1:25:07
Because when you go to these communities that vote vote against projects or say, I'm against this housing coming here, if you ask them what a ULURP is, they're gonna be like, what is that?
1:25:17
They don't know what a ULURP is, and they don't understand what their role is.
1:25:21
They don't understand what their powers are.
1:25:23
So we have a huge education gap that we need to do, and a lot of these communities are against it.
1:25:28
Then secondly, look.
1:25:31
It's clear.
1:25:32
Elections have consequences, and people need to be civically engaged, understand who they're voting for.
1:25:38
Your community has to be engaged, organized because guess what?
1:25:42
If the people who are pro housing are not organizing, the other side is.
1:25:46
It hasn't been.
1:25:47
That's abundantly clear.
1:25:49
But I guarantee you, every corner of the city, there are pockets and large groups of people who want to see housing built, but they have not been mobilized.
1:25:57
They have not been educated, and we have to do the outreach to make sure we're getting there, which is why I've up fronted more than $50,000 to do education and outreach to my communities to build up support and get at least get their understanding of because my ULUIP has failed four times.
Michelle Jackson
1:26:14
That's fair.
Julie Won
1:26:15
I mean, I do think
Leila Bozorg
1:26:16
you're pointing out exactly what the problem is that people will vote in who they believe will will stop housing, and that tends to be more powerful in our city.
1:26:23
So I guess I'm curious on the on the fair housing framework, what are some of the ways that we could actually have that?
1:26:30
You know?
1:26:30
Because as you noted, the speaker's been a champion of housing.
1:26:33
Are there ways we can actually have that have more teeth to produce housing in districts unlike yours that have not been doing their fair share?
Julie Won
1:26:40
But I think that's why we're here for this discussion, right, with the charter to see if there are ways that we can provide the charter to have fair share revisions to say that there is no budget for this.
1:26:52
Every 51 council district will have to build housing, and it'll be different because the amount of housing I can build is not how much housing, like, Southeast Queens will actually, Southeast Queens is doing a great job.
1:27:02
The middle of Queens, Eastern Queens will be building where there's no homes.
1:27:06
So I think there are nuances, but it can be done.