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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Alexa Aviles, Council Member from the New York City Council, on protecting council's role in land use
0:41:26
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5 min
Council Member Alexa Aviles testifies on the importance of the City Council's role in the land use process, particularly for representing working-class, immigrant communities like Sunset Park and Red Hook.
She argues that the council provides a crucial check on administrations and ensures community voices are heard, leading to negotiated benefits.
Aviles advocates for improving the existing process with nuance and guardrails rather than removing council authority, which she believes would be detrimental.
Alexa Aviles
0:41:26
Hello?
0:41:28
Okay.
0:41:29
Hello, everyone.
0:41:30
How are we doing?
0:41:31
Great.
0:41:32
Thank you so much.
0:41:34
So I've lived in Sunset Park for over twenty years.
0:41:38
I'm a Brooklynite, actually raised in East New York, Brooklyn.
0:41:42
So I have seen many, many changes.
0:41:48
That's especially for you.
0:41:51
I have seen many, many changes in our incredible borough of Brooklyn.
0:41:55
And among them has been certainly over the recent history of commiserating with so many fellow neighbors about how our neighborhoods were growing more and more unaffordable, watching families being dispersed, having to move out of state, losing the cohesion of knowing everyone on the block, which really meant a lot for communities.
0:42:19
That's how we survived very difficult conditions.
0:42:24
And yet, here we are still with new raising costs.
0:42:30
And we continue to watch neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Red Hook and working class Black and brown neighbors get pushed aside again and again through our city's political process.
0:42:42
Of course, anger is rising when we see the interests of wealthy, well resourced communities being protected while other communities are completely being disregarded.
0:42:53
And so in every way, these neighborhoods are our homes, and we want to take care and nurture it.
0:42:59
And that's why when I was elected first as a public servant alongside my neighbors to see our neighborhoods that were overlooked, to know intimately that the struggles we face as a home of immigrant and working class New Yorkers.
0:43:16
And this is among one of the many reasons why city council should be their agency should be protected in this land use process and, in some ways, expanded.
0:43:27
And I can get into that a little more later.
0:43:31
Our housing issues through long term sustainable solutions to affordability is where we really need to get.
0:43:38
When we talk about the EULAR process and zoning changes, we're talking about changing people's homes, our lives, our histories, and we are trying to build a better future.
0:43:49
And so city council has a say in that process because we are able to speak to, as some of my colleagues have mentioned, the really deeply rooted concerns and idiosyncrasies of all of our neighborhoods in very, very intimate ways.
0:44:05
And frankly, when the administration, the administration, any mayoral administration, has a variety of interests, it too is a political body that is driven by politics in the same way that individuals and certainly, these tools that we have at our disposal, while very imperfect and ways to improve them, do have an important protection mechanism among them.
0:44:31
And so rather than taking a sledgehammer to this instrument, I think it's important to be surgical here because there is a lot of nuance.
0:44:41
And I'll I just completely disregarded my comments.
0:44:46
Lastly, I'll just say the city council's participation here is an intimate and a short one, and there are certainly significant problems with the overall process.
0:44:59
As you've heard my colleagues mention, years and years of delays for projects, which are outside of our scope.
0:45:06
But if we are trying to solve a problem, among some of those solutions would certainly be a more strategic intervention and looking very closely at all of it, and and in particular, putting in guardrails to protect both from the political winds of a mayoral administration who may not be considering the nuances of a neighborhood and members who may not be interested in in bringing more housing when we have a crisis in our city.
0:45:36
So not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but really looking at this finely with a fine tooth comb and allowing the members to continue to represent their communities in a fifty day period.
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That is what we have as community representatives, which is really important.
0:45:55
And we should think about strengthening those tools rather than diminishing them because removing council authority and process from this larger process would truly be a detriment to our communities and our interests.
0:46:12
And by and large, you see council members negotiating significant community benefits that would have never been there had it not been for their participation and their commitment to protecting the interests of their community first.
0:46:26
I'll stop there.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:41:31
Great, Councilman.
0:41:44
You mean if I could say one second?
0:41:45
Shout out to East New York.