Riley on council's pro-housing record and BSA nominee concerns
Land Use Chair Kevin Riley defends the Council's housing record, citing Monitor Point as an example of finding consensus, and says concerns about Manchin's opposition to community benefit agreements are significant since CBAs help negotiate community needs during housing development.
Thank you, Speaker.
And just want to share the same sentiment.
I think as my role as land use chair, as chair of the zoning and franchise, I think my record speaks for itself, and I think the council's record speaks for itself.
We do our best with pushing housing projects through.
Even when it's turmoil within the community, we always try to find a yes.
An example of that is Monitor Point, which we worked with Councilmember Ressler to make sure that we got to the finish line.
I think that's what the council has done.
So this perception that's online that this council is a NIMBY council, that's false.
There's a lot of different concerns that members have with this nominee.
When you talk about community benefits agreements, these are things that we negotiate with our communities when we are trying to build housing.
But we represent these communities.
We have to go back to these communities, and we realize what our communities need.
So these benefit agreements are supposed to benefit not only the community members that are there, but the new community members that are coming within our community.
And when you have such a high opposition to that, that's going to be a concern to a lot of members within the council.
So to answer your question, what is it going to take?
It's going to take further conversations.
It's going to take our hearing.
We're going to see if John has the same ideologies that he did have when he made a lot of these statements.
But this council is a pro-housing council, and we want to make sure that we are addressing that concern as a council together.