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Q&A
ANHD's nuanced position on balancing local and citywide interests in housing development
2:09:45
·
3 min
Commissioner Kathryn Wylde asks Barika Williams of ANHD if she believes citywide interests should ever overcome local opposition to housing.
Williams clarifies that ANHD does believe this should happen at times but raises concerns about the appeals board process.
She notes that many rezonings are city-led, which could stack the deck, and also suggests that the "fast-track" penalty for low-growth neighborhoods should be tied to failing to meet a metric, not just being at the bottom of the list.
- Williams confirms that citywide interests should sometimes override local opposition.
- Her concern with the appeals board is that in city-led rezonings, the city's vote is essentially guaranteed, leaving the decision up to just one other person.
- She recommends that the fast-track provision for low-growth communities be based on their performance against a housing goal, not simply their rank. This would avoid penalizing communities that have already built their fair share.
Shams DaBaron
2:09:45
good to see y'all, both of y'all.
2:09:48
Well, we basically asked the question that I was gonna ask in reference to the appeals board and how we might be better off considering what you were saying, but also what public advocate Jermani Williams was suggesting as well in terms of the amount of people on that board.
2:10:07
So anything that you can help to help us look into that will be great.
Kathryn Wylde
2:10:16
Barika, I may have misunderstood, but are you saying that you don't think there should be a way that citywide interests sometime overcome local opposition to a housing project?
Barika Williams
2:10:29
Oh, no.
2:10:30
We absolutely think that there are times where citywide interests should be overcoming local opposition.
2:10:35
We completely we see that play out so many times with our membership.
2:10:41
I think the question is, one, I guess, one overarching piece is two notes, which is, one, that in many cases, the entity advancing these rezonings is the city itself.
2:10:58
I think sometimes you all are conceptually thinking of these rezonings as being led by the developer, And it's not necessarily Gerard leading it.
2:11:06
It's DCP.
2:11:07
Right?
2:11:07
It's it's a it's a city led rezoning, in which case there's a question about, like, one vote is already in the bag.
2:11:15
So, really, you're just choosing between two votes to say yay or nay in the event that it was going to an appeals process, right?
2:11:22
But kind of throughout the process, recognizing that we have a large number of city led rezoning processes happening, right?
2:11:29
So let's think about what this could look like if there is rezoning required around the proposal for the IBX.
2:11:38
That's a very different thing than thinking about giving you an express for one site.
2:11:44
And so how do we tangle with those pieces?
2:11:48
I think the other piece, which is this is why we thought about proposal one, the fast tracking of proposal two, when you're in you all have it framed as the community districts that are in the bottom 12 of the five year housing plan going into fast tracking automatically.
2:12:11
Our recommendation is to make that if you have made your metric, then you don't get fast tracked.
2:12:20
If you haven't, then you do.
2:12:21
The number's not static.
2:12:23
It's whether or not you hit your threshold.
2:12:25
Right?
2:12:25
Because then when we think about it, we can say, in this moment in time, in the next fifteen years, it doesn't feel like Kingsbridge or South Bronx or Crown Heights or Jamaica are going to be up.
2:12:43
But there is a time, you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now where they have done five times their share worth of development where they may step down their numbers, and that shouldn't put them in penalty.
2:12:59
Right?
2:12:59
So what we want is, like, penalty being tied to you're not meeting our our fair housing requirement, not that you're at the bottom.
2:13:07
There are times where people should be at the bottom because in the as we think of it as, like, community framing and engagement, it's time for that community to to take a step back and to be able to rest.
2:13:19
That should not put them into a penalty of fast tracking.
2:13:22
So
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:13:25
Thank you.