Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jerrod Delaine, CEO of The Delaine Companies, on streamlining housing development
2:03:34
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147 sec
Jerrod Delaine, CEO of The Delaine Companies and a professor at NYU, testifies in strong support of the proposals to streamline the housing development process.
He shares an anecdote about a church in Flatbush that was unable to pursue an affordable housing project because of the lengthy and expensive ULURP process.
He believes creating a fast track, especially for smaller projects led by groups like churches, will help address the city's housing crisis.
- Delaine emphasizes that New York City has a housing crisis, not just an affordability crisis.
- He supports the fast-track proposal for affordable housing, noting the current process is getting slower.
- He tells the story of advising a church against pursuing a project due to the time and cost of a rezoning.
- He believes simplifying the process for smaller projects will unlock opportunities for faith-based organizations and others to build needed housing.
Jerrod Delaine
2:03:34
Good evening.
2:03:36
My name is Gerard Delane.
2:03:38
I am CEO of the Delane Companies, a development company focused on housing.
2:03:43
I'm also a college professor at NYU, and I'm the incoming president for the Council for Urban Real Estate, which is an organization focused on supporting, empowering, diverse developers.
2:03:56
So, New York City today is facing a housing crisis, not just an affordability crisis, but we do not have enough housing for the amount of people that wanna be here.
2:04:07
These charter amendments are a decisive step toward that direction of making New York a better place and a more inclusive place.
2:04:15
As you all know, the planning process is tough.
2:04:17
It's hard, and it's largely an exclusive process.
2:04:21
So I love the fact that you guys are working to create some solutions to work the direction of building more housing.
2:04:27
I'm in support of the fast track affordable housing.
2:04:31
We need more housing, and it's hard to do it.
2:04:34
It's very slow, and, truthfully, it's getting slower.
2:04:38
So I do support this idea of creating some sort of fast lane for housing that is affordable.
2:04:45
I also support, simplifying for, modest projects or smaller projects.
2:04:51
I think New York City wide and I'll tell you guys, this is a true story.
2:04:56
A young man came to me one time.
2:04:58
He was representing a church in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
2:05:00
He said, Gerard, I'm I'm working on a project.
2:05:02
I said, great.
2:05:02
That's awesome.
2:05:03
He said, yeah.
2:05:04
But we just gotta do a ULURP.
2:05:05
And I said, stop.
2:05:06
Yeah.
2:05:06
Go tell that church you can't do it.
2:05:09
Right?
2:05:10
He was like, oh, no.
UNKNOWN
2:05:11
No.
2:05:11
No.
2:05:11
We're just gonna
Jerrod Delaine
2:05:11
do a rezoning.
2:05:12
I said, you're gonna spend two years doing it.
2:05:15
You're gonna spend $300,000 on my angel's attorneys.
2:05:18
The community's gonna hate you because you got a community board four times.
2:05:21
Right?
2:05:22
And you're not gonna reach the end zone just to build one affordable housing project, which is very tough to do financially.
2:05:29
So I like the idea of creating a fast track, especially for smaller projects because there's churches all over New York City, right, that would love to build fifty, seventy, eighty, ninety, a 100 units.
2:05:42
So I love I love this idea of simplifying the process for us to build smaller projects, but there's a lot of them, that we could create housing across New York City.
2:05:53
So I'm really excited about you guys putting some systems in place to assisting us to build more housing.
2:05:59
So thank you.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:06:00
Thank you so much.