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Q&A
Commissioner Savino and Council Member Won discuss member deference and the need for comprehensive planning
1:17:06
·
5 min
Commissioner Diane Savino asks Council Member Julie Won how to overcome member deference in the City Council, which can hinder housing development, while still respecting the local member's knowledge. Won argues against eliminating member deference, stating it's crucial for negotiating community benefits (citing Innovation Queens), and emphasizes that overcoming opposition requires strong leadership from the Speaker and member education/accountability. She strongly advocates shifting from piecemeal ULURP applications to comprehensive neighborhood rezonings as the best way to plan for density and necessary infrastructure concurrently.
- Member deference is seen as a tool for negotiation, not just obstruction.
- Overcoming opposition requires political will from leadership and members understanding housing needs.
- Comprehensive planning through neighborhood rezonings is presented as superior to individual ULURP applications for coordinating development and infrastructure.
- Current piecemeal development leads to infrastructure deficits (e.g., sewage issues in LIC).
Diane Savino
1:17:06
you.
1:17:06
Thank you, councilwoman.
1:17:08
I actually grew up in the state, I remember when Well, go ahead.
Julie Won
1:17:13
You miss a few hours back.
1:17:14
There were only two tall buildings when
Diane Savino
1:17:16
I left the story in Long Island City.
1:17:18
One was a Citibank building, and the other one was city lights.
1:17:21
Everything else was no more than five stories.
1:17:23
They were all low rise.
1:17:24
There was really nothing here.
1:17:25
So what we've seen, as you pointed out, is expanded growth in Long Island City.
1:17:29
That probably the highest density, and I think you said 40% of of the development in New
Louisa Chafee
1:17:34
York City has occurred in this area.
Julie Won
1:17:37
Let me get the exact stat because I don't wanna While you're looking Yeah.
Louisa Chafee
1:17:40
But you mentioned a
Diane Savino
1:17:41
couple things, and I and I am hoping you can help us with this.
1:17:44
So one of the things you said is everyone needs to everyone needs to participate in the development of housing across the city.
1:17:50
If all 51 council districts agreed to build 5,000 units of housing, we could solve the housing crisis in this.
1:17:56
Yep.
1:17:56
But what gets in the way far too often in either rezonings or the development couple of development projects is member deference.
1:18:04
How do we get around that so that because I think it's important that you're elected to represent a community.
1:18:10
You know that community intimately.
1:18:12
You understand what makes it tick, what the people want, but sometimes the people say no.
1:18:18
So how do we get around the issue of member difference so that
Louisa Chafee
1:18:21
we can actually get to the
Diane Savino
1:18:22
point where we solve in crisis?
1:18:23
Yeah.
Julie Won
1:18:24
So let me get the quote right.
1:18:25
It's the stat rate as Long City's population grew by 40% within the last decade, which is 60 which is almost six times of six times faster than the growth rate for New York City at large.
1:18:38
And how do you get around member difference?
1:18:40
It's not a matter of getting around member difference.
1:18:42
It's making sure, one, that you have a speaker that is aligned, that understands that housing is essential, which we currently do.
1:18:51
It was clear to me when I was going through Innovation Queens, there there was a very fine line where the speaker said, how do we get to a yes?
1:18:58
You're not gonna vote no, but you also need to understand how to leverage your member deference to get to as much affordable housing and community benefits as possible, which is how we got the 45%.
1:19:10
So we have to leverage the power of the speaker, and we also have to make sure that the members individually also understand.
1:19:18
I had very little support where if I said, I'm gonna vote against this project, I'm gonna vote this down, then my colleagues would say, yeah.
1:19:24
Yeah.
1:19:25
Sure.
1:19:25
Go ahead.
1:19:26
You do that.
1:19:27
It was not a possibility anymore.
1:19:29
I know that there was an example with Harlem that happened way early on, but I think that was something that the speaker as well as the council noticed that something that should not be a practice or a precedent, and we troubleshooted that and corrected that right away.
1:19:44
I understand your concerns because I saw a firsthand at City of Yes as well, but I don't think that anyone in the city is going to be okay with getting rid of the Mueller process as is.
1:19:57
I do understand, and I am grateful that the community board is advisory because if I only had met, if it was binding, then I would never be able to pass any project even here.
1:20:09
So it is a lot of stakeholder management, and it is community building.
1:20:13
But without all of these pieces, we would not get the best for our community as we would.
1:20:18
Because even right now going through the one LIC project for the neighborhood rezoning, If my neighborhood wasn't as organized as they are, I know that we wouldn't be focused on what our community needs are, knowing to the dollar amount, what the estimates are, and working together with the council as well as the mayor's office and everybody involved to get to our end goal.
Dr. Lisette Nieves
1:20:38
I can find one thing.
1:20:39
And if you
Diane Savino
1:20:40
can't answer tonight, that's fine, but maybe if you need some thought into it.
1:20:43
If there was one thing we could do to reform the EULO process Mhmm.
1:20:46
To make
Louisa Chafee
1:20:46
it work better so that
Diane Savino
1:20:47
we could actually accomplish the goals and Yeah.
1:20:49
Development, would it be?
Julie Won
1:20:51
We have to shift to a neighborhood rezoning.
1:20:53
We are the only major city of our size that is not doing comprehensive planning.
1:20:58
It is a disservice to ourselves because what we're seeing, especially in Long Island City, is we've allowed these individual to go through, and they're fine because we have all these sky rises.
1:21:08
But guess what?
1:21:09
That developer is only responsible for his block of upgrading the sewage.
1:21:14
Everyone around him?
1:21:15
Nope.
1:21:16
He's not gonna upgrade that.
1:21:17
So what do we have?
1:21:18
Even in the fanciest parts of Long Island City, you have ground backwater, and you have sewage issues.
Michelle Jackson
1:21:24
You're gonna poop in
Julie Won
1:21:25
your toilet of somebody else's feces when there's heavy rainfall because our we go from 16 inch pipes to three inch pipes within one block radius because it has not been updated.
1:21:37
And we can't live like this anymore, And we can't depend on one individual developer to create a new school or to create a new park.
1:21:45
But if we collectively work together, then we have a collective investment as well as estimated tax revenue where we could say there is enough for us to warrant having a population growth to open up a new school, to have a new library, to have a new YMCA.
1:21:58
Sharon is here from the Y.
1:22:00
Want to see collective investment both from the city as well as the developers.
1:22:04
And when you do it in a comprehensive way, you have a better chance also of having MOUs and labor agreements and getting the best bang for our buck for the ways that we use our land.
1:22:15
We have to do comprehensive planning and neighborhood rezonings.
1:22:18
The current administration have been a strong champion of that in a way that we haven't seen to this size citywide in every single borough, but this is the way we should be moving.
1:22:28
We can't do pig piecemeal, especially because department of city planning has no staff.
1:22:33
We don't have the time to be processing 5,000 wheelers a year.