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Q&A
The relationship between pre-ULURP delays, member deference, and SEQRA
1:15:38
·
3 min
Commissioner Diane Savino asks Jessica Katz about potential improvements to the process before ULURP, citing long delays in pre-certification, HPD financing, and state requirements like SEQRA.
Katz argues that the lengthy pre-certification period is often a direct result of member deference within ULURP, as applicants negotiate extensively before formally starting the clock.
Regarding SEQRA, she notes its limitation in not measuring the negative impact of not building needed housing.
Diane Savino
1:15:38
Have a question.
1:15:39
Thanks.
1:15:39
I have a question for Jessica.
1:15:41
First of all, it's good to see you.
1:15:43
And so earlier in the testimony, we heard from the majority leader, Amanda Farias, Alexa Aviles, and Gail Brewer about some of the challenges of the the long process.
1:15:57
So it's based on your experience in the past, like, what could we do to improve to the process before it ever gets to the ULURP?
1:16:05
Because the council members said they only have fifty days to approve a project.
1:16:08
But some of these projects go on for years.
1:16:10
I mean, I still reflect on Coney Island.
1:16:12
We rezoned Coney Island in 02/2009, and some of those buildings are fine.
1:16:18
They're just getting to the ribbon cutting now.
1:16:19
That is fifteen, sixteen years later.
1:16:22
I lost track, sixteen years later.
1:16:24
So what can we do in the precertification process, the HPD process?
1:16:28
How do we, you know, expand the ability to finance some of them or or to come to closing sooner?
1:16:34
How do we do that?
1:16:35
And you must have some thoughts based on your long term experience working in this field.
1:17:22
I I don't think enough has been said also about the the requirements that the state places on local governments with respect to development.
1:17:31
So yes, today is I think today is the one year anniversary of Albany last year finally giving New York City the tools it needs to, you know, get the old four twenty one a projects in the pipeline and create a new a replacement four eighty five x.
1:17:45
I don't know when, you know, or how long it's gonna take for anybody to actually utilize any of those new tools.
1:17:50
But the reality is the state does require the city, not just New York City, but all localities to adhere to a certain set of principles, particularly around environmental review.
1:18:00
And some of those things take an extraordinary amount of time.
1:18:03
Now certainly we don't want to build housing on brownfields, and and we want to make sure that we're building appropriately and safe housing.
1:18:11
But is there some way for us independent of what we do with the Charter Vision Commission, to change that dynamic so that the state takes its foot off the neck of, say, local government?
1:18:43
Thank you.
1:18:44
Thank you.
Jessica Katz
1:16:40
Yeah.
1:16:40
I mean, certainly, there are certainly, resources, staffing, and procedural improvements like the get stuff done report are all very important to achieve in order to push forward the pipeline that already exists.
1:16:53
The precertification period, I think, is really just a reflection of the way that member deference works in the actual EULRP process that makes EULRP, in a way, sort of perfunctory where you do you know, you can negotiate with someone for years or even decades, and you would never enter into a formal EULRP without having some confidence of the actual outcome.
1:17:11
So I think those two things are related.
1:17:12
So if you felt like you had a better if you had a broader constituency to appeal to, then you wouldn't have this very long tail before the EULAR process started.
1:18:23
Sure.
1:18:24
And I think the Seeker process in particular is designed to measure the impact of doing a thing and assumes that the impact of doing nothing is nothing.
1:18:32
And with housing, that's just not the case.
1:18:34
The impact of building no housing is very significant, but we don't measure that if we're not doing it in the first place.
1:18:38
So that's something that the secret process doesn't well it it doesn't embody that well.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:18:45
Any other question?