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PRESENTATION
Alec Schierenbeck on the consequences of the housing shortage and issues with ULURP and member deference
0:10:07
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6 min
Executive Director Alec Schierenbeck discusses the severe human impacts of New York City's housing shortage, such as high rents and displacement.
He explains that while the City Charter controls the land use process (ULURP), this process is flawed for modest projects and is significantly affected by the practice of "member deference" in the City Council.
Member deference, where a local council member can effectively veto a project, deters housing applications and can perpetuate segregation.
- The housing shortage leads to a "landlord's market," necessitating more housing to rebalance power.
- ULURP, while a model in some ways, is ineffective for incremental housing projects.
- "Member deference" means no housing proposal has been approved over a local member's objection in 16 years.
- Critics, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, argue member deference contributes to segregation.
Alec Schierenbeck
0:10:07
There are so many important aspects of the housing problem, not all of which are captured or addressable through the charter.
0:10:15
Rent stabilization provides a critical support to over, you know, over 1,000,000 apartments, but is largely a creature of state law.
0:10:24
Property taxes shape what is built and where, but is largely a creature of state law.
0:10:29
There's budgetary support at the federal and state level for the housing we build and preserve, And environmental review shapes the cost of constructing new housing and where we build it, which is largely a creature of state law.
0:10:42
What the charter does control is the land use process, the process through which we approve changes like zoning changes and who makes decisions.
0:10:51
And in the, proposals we'll talk through, you'll see that the primary, way
0:11:03
intervention through the charter is to restructure the process by which land use decisions are made.
0:11:11
ULURP was written into our charter fifty years ago, And in many ways, it is the envy of other jurisdictions and a model.
0:11:20
It provides a clear timeline for review.
0:11:22
It provides a path to integrate local feedback, borough feedback, expert feedback, and the views of democratically accountable elected officials.
0:11:31
We have heard virtually no testimony, and we've heard a lot of ideas.
0:11:35
We've heard virtually no testimony calling to scrap ULURP altogether, and commission staff do not recommend any wholesale changes to ULURP.
0:11:44
That said, we now have fifty years of experience with EULRP and thirty six years of experience since the 1989 reforms with the city council at the end of the EULRP process.
0:11:56
And that experience has revealed certain flaws in the current public review procedure that this commission may wish to address.
0:12:03
Next slide.
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One problem is that ULURP is categorically broken from modest and incremental projects.
0:12:12
We have done an analysis of the last ten years of all private applications looking to increase residential capacity in the city.
0:12:19
As you'll see, there are many districts where there were no applications to increase housing, at all in a decade.
0:12:28
Many other districts, there are fewer than, one application a year.
0:12:35
Only some, districts see a healthy clip of development.
0:12:40
And, I mean, I should say applications, and that matches quite clearly with the districts that are seeing the most housing growth today.
0:12:47
We also see that the ULURP applications that do come through usually ask for big leaps and big changes rather than small or modest changes.
0:12:57
Only one application in ten years sought an increase of less than 40% of residential capacity.
0:13:03
Only two sought a change to a low density district, meaning that in low density parts of our city, if someone's seeking a, they're asking for a big jump to a medium or high density zoning district.
0:13:14
What that tells you is that only some parts of our city are seeing development activity today, in part because of what is coming through the pipeline through ULURP, And also that EULRP today delivers only the kind of larger changes that communities find it harder to grapple with, and that it categorically prevents the kind of incremental, modest, and organic kinds of development the communities say they'd most like to see, even though those have been historically a critical part of how we house New Yorkers.
0:13:46
Next slide.
0:13:50
The charter only captures some of what is true about our housing and land use system.
0:13:56
And what we've heard so much in our hearing so far is that one of the most important pieces of the land use system in New York City isn't in the charter at all.
0:14:06
It's a city council practice of member deference, a kind of agreement among council members that the whole authority of the city council will be exercised by the single member who represents that area.
0:14:17
Now defenders point out that member deference is one of the most important channels for local views to change and shape projects in our system today, and it gives council members leverage to negotiate changes to projects and community benefits alongside projects.
0:14:33
But as this commission has heard, member deference also means that if a member is against a housing project, it is sure to be defeated.
0:14:40
No housing proposal has been approved through ULURP over a local member's objection in sixteen years.
0:14:46
And as the builders of affordable housing have come to this commission and said, that reality deters even an application to build housing in much of the city.
0:14:57
We heard from Kirk Goodrich of Monadnock Development testimony that the first thing he does when he looks at a potential site for affordable housing is look up who the council member is.
0:15:06
If that person is hostile to, development, he never looks at that site again.
0:15:12
And that tells us that perhaps the most important consequence of member deference is the applications we never see that are categorically prevented from even entering public review.
0:15:22
Next slide, please.
0:15:24
There's no shortage of critics of member deference, and they certainly span the ideological spectrum.
0:15:33
Public advocate Jumaane Williams, far back as 2017, expressed concern that member deference perpetuates segregation in the city given the underlying residential segregation of our city.
0:15:44
And his warning certainly has some substantiation if you look at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's letter to Chicago, where they noted that Chicago's similar aldermanic privilege, disproportionately harms black and Hispanic Chicagoans because they're most in need of affordable housing and perpetuates segregation given their underlying patterns of residential segregation.
0:16:08
Former council members Donovan Richards and Richie Torres have both criticized member deference as a kind of feudal system where only local views are given decisive control.
0:16:21
And I think we heard very compelling testimony from former council member Marjorie Velasquez, who is a former council member, most people think, because she did vote to approve a housing project in her district.
0:16:32
And she explained that she received death threats along the way to doing so.
0:16:37
And, I think her testimonies underlies the difficult position our system puts members in today.
0:16:43
It asked them to do heroic things, putting their jobs on the line, perhaps endangering their own families simply to approve housing.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:11:01
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