CM Brewer Q&A: Mangin on fast track and Manhattan affordable housing
Brewer expresses frustration that the Upper West Side is treated as not wanting affordable housing despite having SROs and wanting more affordable units. She asks why every new building can't require affordable housing like some New Jersey cities. Mangin explains the fast track text is in the charter with limited discretion.
Thank you.
Thank you for meeting with me.
As I pointed out, Manhattan is a different world from what everybody else has been talking about.
And the first issue, that fast track, pisses me off, and I'll tell you why.
To put the West Side, which I have represented for about 20-some years now, in the same bucket with this 12 of other places in the city that do not want affordable housing is absolutely outrageous.
I did a study recently and I listed all the as of right buildings.
No matter how much I tried, nobody at the city government would say that they would do MIH.
They would force something.
They say it's a takings issue, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Even though New Jersey, some of the New Jersey cities are mandating that every new building have affordable housing.
So I'll have two questions.
Why can't we do the same in the city of New York, where every new building has to have some affordable housing, number one?
Number two, would you demand that places like the Upper West Side be taken out of any list?
We have SROs with affordable housing.
We want more affordable housing.
We're told constantly, no, we won't put one voucher, one Section 8, one city FEPS, nothing.
We only want market to sell.
subsidize affordable.
I am so tired of that.
So I want to understand in the fast track method, would you take out places like the Upper West Side and give us some more affordable housing?
Thank you, Council Member.
It sounds like you're referring to the affordable housing fast track, which is a separate
It is, but you had some say about it when you were at City Planning.
The text that lays out the affordable housing fast track is in the charter at this point, and so there would be extremely limited discretion on how to, there was a rule making.
Did you ever talk about doing it differently, you personally?
As I mentioned in my responses to council, had expressed concern at one point about trying to ensure
that no community districts that were at the highest levels of displacement risk ended up in the fast track.
When we ran the numbers, it turned out that community districts that are higher on the displacement risk index tend to produce higher amounts of affordable housing so that they were not implicated by the fast track.
Okay, I'm just saying it is outrageous.
It is absolutely outrageous.
Number two, at a public meeting at Community Board 8, what was talking about the fact that so much affordable housing
units get lost when the obviously east side and west side are becoming more unaffordable.