CM Krishnan Q&A: Garcia on affordable housing preservation and community land trusts

Thank you so much, Chair.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Commissioner, I know we're here in a different capacity, but it's good to see you again, and I appreciate all your work and your leadership of DEP.

I know we partnered together on many things in my community where flooding from Queens Boulevard to

25th Avenue has been a big issue in our community, and I appreciate your partnership in trying to find sustainable long-term ways to address it.

Thank you.

I just had a question for you.

You know, with the land bank in particular, I also think there are opportunities.

generally, to think creatively about how we preserve affordable housing in our city.

Community land trusts provide one example.

You know, HDFCs, which have fallen by the wayside, provide another example.

I've represented them, and I know how critical they are.

These are all good tools to preserve affordable housing.

And I'm just wondering how you think about that.

What is the role of the land bank in coming up with some creative solutions to preserve affordable housing?

Some of them, which frankly have existed before, but our city has moved away from them over the years, and it would be good to rethink how we can bring them back.

Or new ones like CLTs, which I think are really important tools as well.

How does a land bank oversee those issues or think about those issues, and how would you in this position think about them?

Yeah, thank you so much for the question, Councilmember.

And yes, thank you for the partnership.

I appreciate it.

So that's a really important question, and I think aspect of the land bank, having studied some other community land banks and land banks across the country,

it really does set the stage for New York City to think of how we look at abandoned properties, what the reuse of the property is, with a lens towards...

Maybe improving or meeting or matching what the community's desires are.

And so I think right now, as I understand the process of the lien sale, it's very much about the sale.

And then, you know,

you know, the private trust takes it over and usually just sells it.

But here there's an opportunity to say, yes, we need to focus on the enforcement and collections.

That's one goal.

But the other is, then what?

Can we reuse that property?

And so that, I think I look forward to working with the board members to really think of those options, that flexibility.

And also, like I said before, some of the best practices from like Baton Rouge that is doing it, thinking of a main street and bringing back open space to a community or in the Palisades.

Fire in California they're thinking of standing up on with that idea of what would we do with this property into the future.

Yeah, so I think you hit the mark that there is those opportunities and I look forward to working with the council and all of you and everyone else on what those opportunities could be.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.