Lucy Sexton testifies on impact on artist JLWQA spaces in Soho

Lucy Sexton, Ed Lee, June Barwick, and Ken Fisher.

Go ahead and start.

Lucy, you want to start?

Hi.

My name is Lucy Sexton.

I lead New Yorkers for Culture and Arts.

It is a coalition of hundreds of artists and cultural organizations of all sizes across the city.

I am here to talk about the impact of this law's effect on artists.

I want to also start by saying that I have long supported and been in favor of a pied-a-terre tax.

I lived in Soho for some time, and it was distressing to see that neighborhood with dark windows at night.

No families, no people living there.

It really hollowed out the neighborhood and skewed those prices.

So while I'm in favor of it, I'm asking the city council to address one particular part of it, which is that the artists who moved into Soho and other places in the 70s and transformed industrial spaces.

Were at threat of that they shouldn't live there.

So the city council came up with the joint living and work quarters assignment for those units, which meant that they were going to work there, they're going to rehearse there, they're going to do dance class there, and they're also going to live there.

Well, right now I have a member of my organization who his parents were very famous.

Postmodern dancers David Gordon and Valda Satterfield established their loft in Soho in 1976.

They died recently, and he now owns it.

He is continuing to use it, as he has for 40 years, as a place for his theater company to rehearse.

He gives it out at low to no cost to dance companies, for dance classes, for performances.

It is in heavy use.

He got a notice that he has to pay $90,000.

He makes less than that in a year, so this will wipe him out and force him to sell the unit if it goes through.

I'm asking that the council look at the joint live and work quarters, JLQUA, whatever it's called,

and make a special exception to say, yes, if it is being used for nonprofit art use, if it is being actively

rented and rented, particularly rented at much below market cost to artists to live, work, and create work in, that that should also be a reason that they should be able to hold on to that unit.

The city council stepped in the 70s to protect them and make sure they could stay there at this time when artists'housing and artists'workspace is in woefully short supply and we are barely able to make a living and live here.

Do everything you can to protect spaces that they must be able to prove it but are still being used for nonprofit arts production and rehearsal.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

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