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Q&A
Commissioners discuss strategies for facilitating housing development while navigating "member deference"
0:40:17
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159 sec
Commissioner Anita Laremont proposes framing charter changes not as an attack on "member deference," but as a way to create expedited paths for specific, often incremental, housing categories.
She emphasizes that ULURP would remain for most projects and that community and other elected officials' input will still be key.
Commissioner Shams DaBaron supports the concept of an appeals board as a mechanism to address contentious housing decisions.
- Laremont suggests focusing on facilitating needed housing types rather than directly confronting the practice of member deference.
- The goal is to enable minimal, incremental growth through simplified processes for certain housing subcategories.
- An appeals board, potentially involving the local council member, borough president, and mayoral representation, is seen as a way to introduce broader perspectives on difficult projects.
Anita Laremont
0:40:17
I I hear you, Diane, but I think that the way that we would talk about this isn't we're not even gonna say we are affecting member deference.
0:40:27
We are saying that there are categories of actions that can't get done in today's world, and they have to have a path that allows them to proceed outside of this process.
0:40:41
And wherever we end up on that, I think that's really where we have to make our point is that we're trying to facilitate the building of housing in an easier way.
0:40:51
We're leaving ULURP as it is for most things, but for certain subcategories of of housing, we're going to do something that's a little more expedited, little easier.
0:41:02
And the categories that we're gonna do it in are categories where we're talking really about minimal incremental growth.
0:41:09
And I think we have to make that point too.
0:41:11
We're not gonna let somebody build a a tower in Saint George.
0:41:15
You know?
0:41:16
It's gonna be incremental things.
0:41:17
And so to me, the way we talk about this has to not be that we are trying to change member deference.
0:41:24
We're just trying to facilitate categories of housing to be built in an easier way.
0:41:30
And if we stay with that and also emphasize the ways in which we are incorporating community input and other elected officials' input, I think we have I think we have a chance here to get this done.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:41:44
Mhmm.
0:41:45
Mhmm.
Shams DaBaron
0:41:45
And and your, I think it was, what, two proposals of how to in a case where maybe, you know, according to the community needs or the city needs that, you have the I forgot what you called it, the executive, not an executive body, but you have the combination of the city council member, the borough president, and and the Appeals.
0:42:09
Appeals board.
0:42:10
Mhmm.
0:42:11
I think that also, has a place that that is a good way to sort of, like, get around the hard issues and, of course, it varies community by community.
Alec Schierenbeck
0:42:22
If I could offer one thought on that.
0:42:24
What we read back in the history of 1975 and 1989 when voters approved EULRP and when they approved changes to make the city council at the end of EULRP process, the system we have today is not what they had in mind.
0:42:39
If you go back and look, it was table stakes in those debates that there should not be a hyper local veto, that a community board, for example, should not have a material power to veto projects, rather that they should have a voice in the process that would then be balanced with borough wide and city wide interests.