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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Council Member Pierina Sanchez on land use reforms, fair housing, and accountability for rezoning commitments
1:28:27
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8 min
Council Member Pierina Sanchez, Chair of the Council's Committee on Housing and Buildings, offers her perspective on land use reforms for the city charter. She urges the commission to consider reforms that build on the Speaker's fair housing framework by creating a charter mechanism with enforceability or expedited review for districts that fall short of meeting their fair share of housing.
Sanchez also advocates for accelerated review processes for 100% affordable projects targeting neighborhood incomes, projects below a certain density threshold, and projects aligned with adopted community or comprehensive plans. Furthermore, she calls for charter reforms to strengthen accountability for city commitments (points of agreement) made during large-scale rezonings, citing delays and unfulfilled promises in her own district after the Jerome Avenue rezoning.
Pierina Sanchez
1:28:27
Thank you so Thank you, chair Beury and members of the commission.
1:28:33
My name is Pierina Sanchez.
1:28:34
I am the city council member representing the Fourteenth District in The Bronx, home to the neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Fordham, University Heights, and Mount Hope.
1:28:42
And I'm the chair of the council's committee on housing housing and buildings.
1:28:46
I was born and raised in the community that I now represent, a community that faces significant housing challenges on nearly every level From my childhood in the West Bronx to now serving as a city council member, I've held several roles that have given me the perspective I hold today on matters of housing and land use.
1:29:02
I served and by the way, I'm gonna, do the disclaimer that my staff convinced me to say all of this about me before launching into my recommendations.
1:29:10
Thank you, Ben.
1:29:12
I served for four years as New York director of the Regional Plan Association where I authored Inclusive City, which is a report focused on equitable planning and land use strategies, as well as pushed out a regional analysis of housing displacement risk and residential segregation.
1:29:27
In my own community of the West Bronx, I cofounded the Jerome Avenue revitalization collaborative in response to the Jerome Avenue rezoning during which I served on Bronx community board five.
1:29:37
And it's in seven in its seven years of existence, JARC's task has been twofold, to ensure implementation of the rezoning's point of agreement and to advance inclusive growth along the Jerome Corridor.
1:29:50
In my time as at city hall during the de Blasio administration, I negotiated several rezonings, including the Bay Street corridor neighborhood plan in Staten Island and a number of smaller projects throughout the five boroughs.
1:30:01
And finally, in my first four years as council member, I have championed bold steps that we must take to confront the housing crisis, including supporting the City of Yes zoning tax amendment in tandem with a $5,000,000,000 a $5,000,000,000 investments in City for All, the council that the council secured, and is working with the administration's implement.
1:30:21
I mentioned all of this to ground my testimony and the experience that has spanned, many sides of the land use process as a community advocate, a planner, city hall negotiator, and now as a city council member.
1:30:32
So now tonight, I would like to offer my perspective on land use reforms to the city charter that will bring us closer to a just city where all New Yorkers, regardless of background, have the opportunity to put roots down and call this place home.
1:30:45
I sincerely hope that the commission will think big as it considers structural reform and that you do so with a faith in New Yorkers.
1:30:53
Faith that when equipped with the right rule tools, when treated with respect by their city government, our neighbors can be invaluable partners in planning for our collective future.
1:31:04
First, the commission should consider charter reforms that build on the speakers for housing framework passed in December 2023.
1:31:12
This legislation was an important first step toward addressing a striking inequity That in the past decade, just 10 council districts, including mine, have built more than the other 41 combined.
1:31:25
That is unacceptable.
1:31:26
For too long, the same neighborhoods have been asked to bear the entire city's burden.
1:31:30
While citywide tax amendments are an important step, we should pursue system changes that ensure every community does its part.
1:31:38
The framework requires starting next year that the city set five year housing targets for each of our 59 community districts.
1:31:45
These targets are to be incorporated into the city's fair housing plan and are accomplished with a strategic equity framework that will identify barriers to ensuring that every community contributes their fair share of housing and affordable housing.
1:31:59
Setting targets is a good baseline, but what comes next?
1:32:02
What happens if a community district consistently does not reach its targets?
1:32:06
What happens to those that do?
1:32:08
What combination of carrots and sticks can the city establish to incentivize compliance?
1:32:13
How can we empower communities to chart their own path to reaching their housing targets?
1:32:19
To allow the fair housing framework to reach its full potential, the commission should again cons should consider a charter mechanism that gives framework teeth.
1:32:27
Some, some kind of enforceability or expedited review for districts that fall short of meeting their fair share.
1:32:34
If very little new housing is being built in an area not because of market conditions, but because of a refusal to approve even a modest number of new homes, our land use process must be able to solve for that scenario.
1:32:47
Similarly, the commission should consider whether existing community planning tools in the charter can be better integrated with fair housing freight the fair housing framework so that districts who want to meet their targets are empowered to do so through planning and not just zoning.
1:33:03
The commission second, the commission should consider charter reforms that allow for accelerated review processes for projects that are, a, a % affordable and target neighborhood level incomes, b, fall below a certain density threshold and are disincentivized under ULURP today, and c, align with an adopted community plan, borough plan, or a comprehensive plan.
1:33:27
What I'm suggesting here is that there are certain kinds of housing that are badly needed in this moment of crisis, whether they are meeting the needs of low income New Yorkers, adding gentle density, or aligned with strategic planning.
1:33:39
ULIP should not treat these projects the same way they treat a market rate development that needs a zoning change.
1:33:46
An accelerated an accelerated review for this limited universe of projects would court, of course, need to be to excuse me, would, of course, need to preserve robust opportunities for public engagement, including a role for the council.
1:34:00
But it would recognize that our land use process can and should reflect the urgency with which we must act to house our neighbors.
1:34:07
Third, the commission should consider charter reforms that strengthen accountability for city commitments or points of agreement made as part of large scale rezonings.
1:34:17
The potential of neighborhood rezonings to build large chunks of housing integrated with community needs unfortunately received very little mention in the commission's preliminary report, which focused almost entirely on private applications.
1:34:30
When the council adopts a neighborhood rezoning, it often comes after weeks of intense negotiation that culminate in a point of agreement.
1:34:37
These documents state that the administration's commitment to make significant investments, usually on the capital side, in the neighborhood that it seeks to rezone.
1:34:46
This can range from park improvements to sewer upgrades, small business support, to public housing renovations.
1:34:53
It is only, it is one of only a few ways in which these neighborhoods receive the investments that they deserve.
1:35:00
But there's a problem.
1:35:02
These commitments are often massively delayed or outright disregarded.
1:35:06
As I mentioned earlier, I cofounded the JARC after the Jerome Avenue rezoning and now represent a large a large section of the area that was rezoned.
1:35:15
Some of the city's commitments are way behind schedule, and others have been unfulfilled because the administration claimed that they expired.
1:35:24
For instance, seven years after rezone the rezoning, there is still no design, let alone construction, for the promised renovation of the Davidson Community Center, and a funding gap remains without a clear proposal from the administration on how they will close it.
1:35:40
Small businesses along the Jerome Corridor were also supposed to receive robust targeted support, but those commitments were disregarded.
1:35:49
A promise, Jerome Avenue business grant program, well, in its latest report of the commitments tracker, the administration explains that the funding was repurposed, quote, repurposed by OMB, close quote, and then expired in fiscal year twenty two.
1:36:06
That is unacceptable, and I accept expect the commitment to be fully funded as promised.
1:36:12
Finally, our com our city often engages in piecemeal planning across agencies.
1:36:17
The commission should revisit the idea of implementing a comprehensive planning framework, like the one considered by the 2019 charter revision commission that aligns existing plans and centers fair housing, racial, economic, health, and climate justice, all grounded in robust community engagement.
1:36:35
A comprehensive plan with enforceable district level targets would also help ease the burden on Euler the Euler process and reduce the outsized influence of NIMBYs in blocking projects that benefit the broader city.
1:36:48
Thank you, commissioner, for your attention to these critical issues and also acknowledging thank you for the extra time.