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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Dena Tasse-Winter from Village Preservation on preserving oversight in development
2:40:15
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128 sec
Dena Tasse-Winter testifies on behalf of Village Preservation, expressing concern about potential deregulation of development and removal of oversight.
She argues against dismantling systems that consider environmental impacts and neighborhood character.
Village Preservation urges the commission to focus on preserving existing affordable housing and ensuring new housing is truly affordable, rather than simply removing oversight which they believe worsens the affordability crisis.
Dena Tasse-Winter
2:40:15
Good evening.
2:40:16
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
2:40:18
My name is Dina Tas Winter, and I'm speaking on behalf of Village Preservation, a membership based nonprofit that documents, celebrates, and preserves the special architectural and cultural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NOHO.
2:40:32
I'm here today specifically to speak about housing because while we firmly believe that we should regularly review and reevaluate our government systems and bureaucracies, as has become apparent, destroying longstanding practices and standards merely for the sake of change will likely do more harm than good.
2:40:49
So would deregulating industries that need careful oversight and dismantling systems for ensuring balanced and appropriate review of changes that will have a profound impact on our lives, neighborhoods, and city.
2:41:01
Based on public statements made by mayor Adams who convened this body, we are concerned that this is exactly what the commission has been charged to do.
2:41:09
We strongly oppose efforts to deregulate developments in New York City or to remove common sense oversight, which ensures that environmental and other impacts of new development are adequately considered.
2:41:20
We also also strongly urge the commission not to seek to strip away necessary checks and balances on the development process in our city and to ensure that neighborhood character and historic resources continue to be considered as important parts of the evaluation of appropriate new development in our neighborhoods.
2:41:38
Our city is currently aiming to add thousands of units of new housing each year, But by far, most of these new developments are unaffordable to the vast majority of New Yorkers.
2:41:48
And in too many cases, they replace older, more affordable existing housing stock.
2:41:54
Both make our city's affordability crisis worse, not better.
2:41:58
Instead of encouraging or enabling more unfettered development with less oversight, we urge this administration and this body to look at ways to preserve and make permanent the affordable housing we do have and to ensure that new housing that we create is as affordable as possible.
2:42:15
Deregulation and removal of critical elements of oversight, as the mayor has discussed doing, would not accomplish that.
2:42:21
Thank you very much.