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Q&A
Systemic issues beyond ULURP impacting housing development
0:15:41
·
3 min
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. follows up on council member deference, asking how to address situations where developers avoid certain districts due to anticipated opposition or find the ULURP process itself too difficult.
Majority Leader Amanda Farias shifts focus from ULURP itself to broader systemic issues.
She suggests that agency policies (like HPD financing), capacity issues, bonding limits, and outdated processes are significant bottlenecks that need examination and reform, rather than solely focusing on council decision-making.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:15:41
If could follow-up on that question, and I I definitely appreciate the sentiment.
0:15:46
But in some ways, the question is also about how you manage it in your district, as we've said, how it's managed citywide.
0:15:52
And we've heard compelling testimony from, some developers.
0:15:57
They will not even propose projects in certain districts because of anticipated opposition from local council leadership.
0:16:04
We've heard from developers of smaller developers that the process, not only the precertification process, but the EULAR process itself is so onerous that they have no ability to a very limited ability to pursue projects because they don't have the capital or time, particularly for smaller projects to move forward.
0:16:25
And so even, and I'm sorry if the question's repetitive, but I guess I would ask even understanding the value of having local leadership who understand the community Mhmm.
0:16:36
Both drive what develop happened in the district, but also use that power to lever things like affordable housing other needs.
0:16:42
In some ways, trying to understand what you would recommend to drive different action in other districts, where council leaders might not be as open, to those good faith negotiations that we need to have affordable housing, not just in some district.
0:16:58
So the other testimony we've seen very starkly of that that housing development you described is not happening citywide.
0:17:03
It's happening in a in a portion of the city.
Amanda Farias
0:17:06
Yeah.
0:17:07
I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is a recent example from one of my colleagues, council member Narcisse, who negotiated a deal in her community with a developer that has now turned that affordable housing project into a shelter.
0:17:20
So I think there are a lot of gaps within the system, like the agency policy itself, where we can put some stoppages to make sure that the housing that we're actually putting people through in terms of the EULAR process is actually coming out in in implementation.
0:17:34
I think to couple with that and to support that, the looking at different ways where the city can either expand bonding capacity to expand the amount of closings we have every year, I think we do have to be a little bit more innovative on how many closings HPD can do, for example, even looking at their term sheets and redeveloping them, which I know is something that we are consistently communicating with HPD on.
0:18:00
There's a multitude of facets that we have in front of us that just quite aren't working right now, and no one is taking a deep look into on how to preliminarily say the system can be better.
0:18:12
I gave some solutions here, and I'll make sure to put this testimony in the record too and written.
0:18:18
But we have agencies that aren't quite functioning at their best, and it's not for a lack of trying, and it's not for the lack of the efforts being made out of those leaders.
0:18:28
But there is capacity issues.
0:18:30
There is closing issues.
0:18:32
There is bonding issues that I think the city can take time to look into more deeply other than this one component of removing community's voice and council's decision making process which is coupled with the community's voice and the land use decision making.