Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Bob Kelly, Political Action Representative for the Building Industry Association of New York City, on mapping reform and housing affordability
1:20:17
·
4 min
Bob Kelly, representing the Building Industry Association of New York City (BIANY), thanks the commission and city agencies for their work on reforming the city mapping process.
He describes the previous archaic system of paper maps stored in the City Hall basement, emphasizing its inefficiency and reliance on personal connections with now-retired staff.
Kelly strongly supports any efforts to modernize this process and make it more tech-savvy.
- He illustrates the current housing affordability crisis by comparing his father buying a house on a policeman's wage at three times his income, to a similar house recently purchased by a cop and fireman for nine times their income.
Bob Kelly
1:20:17
Good evening.
1:20:18
I I wanted to thank, the mayor's office, Dan Savino, Alec and Casey, as well as the local city planning office for inviting me to talk about, in specific terms, this new mapping process.
1:20:30
But in general terms, I am the political action representative for the Building Industry Association of New York City, representing builders mainly in Staten Island and in Brooklyn.
1:20:43
Born and raised in Staten Island.
1:20:45
I've been in the building industry for forty years.
1:20:48
And again, just wanted to thank Diane and the other members for taking the initiative And the only way to do that would be to go into the basement of City Hall.
1:21:27
And as Nicole mentioned prior, these books look like something out of a a Tolstoy movie.
1:21:34
They're they're three feet wide, four feet high.
1:21:37
And, I'll elaborate a little more on Nicole's point.
1:21:40
As you open them, all you saw was tissue paper over tissue paper over Post it note, over somebody's comments, and you you could not really understand it.
1:21:51
And the only way we got through the process up until recently was that there were two people down there, Mike Nagy and Ted Wodrinsky, who both have retired.
1:22:00
They're a little older than me.
1:22:01
But if you didn't know one of those guys personally, you got nothing done.
1:22:06
And I'm talking up into the two thousands when there was an Internet and there was computer information.
1:22:12
If you didn't know those guys, you couldn't move forward.
1:22:15
And I think it's important to state that the idea of having five of those books or multiple books throughout the city is just absolutely insane.
1:22:25
It always amused me that they kept these precious books in a basement below grade.
1:22:30
And you were 150 feet from the narrow I'm sorry, from the from the the Narrows.
1:22:35
At any given time, we could have been all out of business, including the city workers because without those maps, nothing nothing could happen.
1:22:43
So I I just wanna put that in perspective because anything that this administration, the city planning commission, and this city local city planning office along with the mayor's office can do to move my business forward and make it more tech savvy, I'm all for it.
1:22:58
And and I I like the fact that, again, with city workers, again, not trying to be disparaging, it's very easy when you're a civil servant to just say, I'm just gonna do my job.
1:23:09
I'm not gonna think out of the box.
1:23:10
I'm just gonna, you know, trudge away.
1:23:13
And these people are really thinking forward.
1:23:16
They were able to get some changes at at South Richmond last year that were critical to my business.
1:23:22
So I'll just leave by saying this.
1:23:25
I I grew up on Staten Island.
1:23:27
My dad bought a house on a policeman's wage for three times his income.
1:23:32
The house next to my dad's house closed two days ago.
1:23:35
It was also purchased by a cop and a fireman.
1:23:38
They paid if you took one income out of the process, they paid nine times their income for a 65 year old house.
1:23:46
And I've talked to Diane about this at length.
1:23:48
My dad did it at 3.5 times his income.
1:23:51
My mother stayed home.
1:23:53
These two civil servants will be doing it over time, and I don't know who's gonna take care of their kids when they when they have them, hopefully.
1:24:00
But they paid nine times their income to get the same house my my dad bought in 1963.
1:24:06
He bought it brand new.
1:24:08
They bought it 64 years old.
1:24:10
And I think that's a very compelling example, and it's true, and it's happening every day, not just on Staten Island, but throughout the city.
1:24:18
Thank you.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:24:18
Thank you.