More than 700 New Yorkers signed up for City Council marathon ‘City of Yes’ housing plan hearing

Hundreds of New Yorkers are signed up to stock their views astatine a marathon City Council proceeding Tuesday reviewing the Adams administration’s sweeping “City of Yes” plan, which aims to boost the city’s lodging proviso by overhauling decades-old zoning regulations.

The hearing, which was underway Tuesday greeting successful the Council’s Zoning and Franchise Subcommittee, marked the panel’s 2nd league successful arsenic galore days connected the plan. On Monday, the subcommittee heard testimony from Daniel Garodnick, Adams’ Department of City Planning director, and Adolfo Carrion, his Housing Preservation and Development commissioner.

Tuesday’s proceeding was acceptable to absorption connected nationalist testimony, and Bronx Councilman Kevin Riley, the subcommittee’s chair, kicked it disconnected by noting that much than 700 radical had signed up to stock their views.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, a Democrat who has advisory input connected the plan, was among those who signed up to testify. He offered a ringing endorsement of the “City of Yes” initiative, arguing it’ll drastically summation the city’s quality to physique lodging quickly.

“Finding a location successful New York City is thing akin to the ‘Hunger Games,'” Levine said, noting that flat vacancy rates successful the metropolis are astatine historical lows portion rents are astatine historical highs. “This would beryllium a crippled changer for our lodging crisis.”

LEVINE

Shawn Inglima/for New York Daily News

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine speaks successful Bowling Green Park successful Manhattan, New York, connected Tuesday, August 23, 2022. (Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News)

Most of the New Yorkers signed up to attest Tuesday, though, weren’t expected to stock Levine’s views.

Many New Yorkers participating successful the proceeding reason City of Yes is problematic connected aggregate levels.

Some reason it doesn’t see capable safeguards to guarantee that lodging units that extremity up being built owed to the projected zoning changes are affordable and accessible to moving people New Yorkers. Others person contended the program would drastically change the quality of definite neighborhoods, arsenic the Adams medication pushes to usage the plan’s zoning overhaul to conception a small spot much lodging successful each country of the city.

Mayor Eric Adams and City Planning Director Dan Garodnick talk astatine a rally successful enactment of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” connected the steps of City Hall successful Manhattan connected Monday, April 29, 2024. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)

Paul DiBenedetto, the seat of Community Board 11, which spans Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston and different eastbound Queens neighborhoods, argued the “top-down approach” of the City of Yes program volition lone payment existent property developers.

“[It is] a Robert Moses-style attack to zoning, written by developers for developers,” DiBenedetto testified.

Among different matters, the City of Yes program would alteration zoning regulations to let for two-to-four stories of apartments to beryllium built connected apical of commercialized spaces and promote improvement of single-room flat with shared kitchens and bathrooms, alleged SROs. It would besides let bare bureau buildings to beryllium transformed into lodging and fto owners of one- and two-family residential buildings to crook their garages, attics and perchance basements into housing.

A City Council proceeding is pictured Tuesday, August 27, 2024, astatine City Hall successful Manhattan. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)

Many of the zoning regulations that presently forestall specified improvement day backmost to the 1960s. The mayor’s bureau has said upward of 109,000 caller units of lodging could beryllium built by 2039 if the program passes.

The City Council’s Democratic majority, who request to motion disconnected connected the program for it to go law, has mostly been supportive of it.

However, galore Council members representing outer-boroughs, including each of its Republican members, person been skeptical.

Bronx Councilman Rafael Salamanca, Jr., who chairs the Council’s Land Use Committee, voiced peculiar interest Monday with the plan’s connection to destruct parking minimum requirements for lodging improvement projects.

“[The Department of City Planning] says that the City of Yes is not a 1 size fits all, but that’s precisely what the parking connection is, removing parking requirements crossed the metropolis careless of entree to transit oregon different factors,” Salamanca said.