Public testimony: Marissa Solomon opposes project, cites displacement concerns
Marissa Solomon testifies that the project will cause displacement of poor and working-class Coney Island residents. She states the developer wants to build over a park, not a parking lot, and cites 345 HPD complaints and 128 violations over two years. She argues the city should not reward developers with neglect records with ELA program loans covering up to 90% of construction costs.
Yeah, hi.
You may begin.
Thank you.
Everyone in New York knows we need to build more affordable housing in the city.
But in order to achieve this goal, it is crucial that the City Council approve the right building projects that will actually deliver more affordable housing, not projects that just try to wear the label of affordable by actually causing more displacement of working class New York residents.
The proposed West 24th Street rezoning to allow the developer to build a new building over what is now supposed to be a park for the current residents of his existing building will cause exactly that, the displacement of poor and working class people in Coney Island.
It is crucial that the City Council examine the full details of this project and the full record of this developer and understand that the current building was once part of the Mitchell-Lama Affordable Housing Program.
The building left Mitchell-Lama and the current owner closed off access for residents to the park that he now wants to build over.
He's not trying to build over a parking lot, but a park, one of the few open green spaces in Coney Island.
The developer also has a long record of violations in his current building, including HPD receiving 345 complaints and issuing 128 violations over just the past two years.
And if you look at the developer's other buildings, there's a long pattern of open violations and the filing of many eviction attempts against his tenants, very few of which were approved, demonstrating his strategies for displacing existing residents.
And then we wonder why the rent is so high in the city.
The city will never
ever be able to achieve its goals to build more affordable housing if the city rewards developers with this kind of pattern of neglect of their existing properties with loans of up to 90% of the construction costs for the new building under the city's ELA program.
People in Coney Island can't afford expensive land use attorneys to fight for them.
They rely on their elected officials to look out for their interests.
It's crucial that the City Council listen to the people in Coney Island and our elected representative on this issue, both in order to truly achieve the city's affordable housing goals without displacing existing residents and to preserve other council members'ability to deliver the real
affordable housing their constituents demand.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next panel is Keith Suber and Karan Banks.
Keith Suber and Coran Banks.
Last call for Keith Suber and Karan Banks.
I believe at least one person is on Zoom.
Of that panel, of that last two?
Yes.
Okay.