Public: Arielle Hirsch (UHAB) supports Mangin, citing community education work
Hirsch, UHAB policy director, supports Mangin and brings a guidebook he helped create at the Center for Urban Pedagogy explaining affordable housing, zoning, and ULURP at an eighth-grade level. She says his technical knowledge of HDFC co-ops is exactly the expertise needed at BSA.
Thanks, Chair Ung and members of the committee.
My name is Arielle Hirsch, and I'm the Director of Policy at UHAB.
For 50 years, UHAB has empowered low- to moderate-income residents to take control of their housing and become homeowners in the buildings where they already live.
We turn distressed rental housing into lasting, affordable co-ops, provide comprehensive training and technical assistance to keep these homes healthy and stable in the long term, and we would offer our support for the nomination of John Mangin to the chair of
board, sorry, to the Board of Standards and Appeals.
The majority of our work does not concern land use policy, but obviously in affordable housing, so many of these things are interconnected.
We'll submit written testimony, but I don't get to be the first person to bring this prop today, but I am bringing it because it still lives in our office, and this series on what is affordable housing, zoning, and ULERP,
which John Mangin helped to create and draft in his time at COP, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, has helped us to educate
many decades now of community members and homeowners and understanding their rights and obligations around their land use and housing policy and how to engage in their local community.
I cannot personally think of somebody who is more qualified to engage with community in a thoughtful and considerate and respectful way, having done so much legwork in our city to help folks not only understand
their rights and responsibilities, but also how to engage with those structures of power and to be able to shape and change them.
I'll also note that it is really important to have someone who is a technical expert.
I'm glad to go after Brad because I don't have the technical expertise, but I noticed in the testimony earlier, Mr.
Manjan mentioned some of the particularities of HDFC co-ops when they come through some of these appeals.
These are the kinds of nitty-gritty technical specifics that are really useful to have in a chair, and we strongly support his nomination.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you both for your testimony.
You're now excused.
Okay, nobody else?
Yep, I could join.
Great.