Public (Zoom): Jeffrey Thomas supports Mangin for technical economic role

Are you speaking to me?

Yes, yes, please go for it.

Thank you.

Don't mean to go ahead of such a distinguished speaker, but my name is Jeffrey Thomas.

I'm a resident of central Brooklyn.

Thank you all for the opportunity to be here again virtually.

I was at City Council about a year and a half ago as you all were discussing a project that's two blocks down from my church.

I supported that project.

It was going to bring affordable housing as well as market area housing to an area that badly needed more supply.

And I remember telling the council at that time, I don't support it because I care about the profits of the developer.

I just want to make sure it gets built.

If they only make a couple of cents of profit, I don't care as long as it gets built, that's fine.

And we had other community members testifying, some saying the developers could certainly build many more affordable units while still making it able to successfully build the project.

The council approved the reasoning with modifications, which I thank you all for.

And then we found out about a month ago that the developers finally decided that isn't going to work for them.

They sold the site to another developer that thinks, okay, they can make it work, but they can only make it work at the cost of more studios, more one bedrooms, fewer family sized homes, more market rate, one person housing.

And

We'll see if they can get it.

Make it work.

I hope that they can make it work.

Even if it does, let's keep in mind that housing delayed is housing denied.

We are seeing another developer start over and people unable to move in for another couple of years.

And it strikes me that for the most part, this wasn't a policy disagreement.

Just about everyone involved wanted as much affordable housing as possible.

Some people thought we could get 100% affordable building, and that's what they were advocating for.

Others, like myself, said the funds for that didn't exist.

We would need to go with some sort of balance or some other sort of balance.

Some people were wondering, do we have the infrastructure, the plumbing, the schools, et cetera, to support more than a certain number of new residents?

All of these were technical questions, economic questions, not policy questions.

The question was, how do we get as much affordable housing as possible built?

And from everything I've heard this afternoon, from everything I've learned about him by reading about him, I think Mr.

Mangin is an excellent choice for this sort of technical economic role, which is exactly what he's been nominated for.

I will also say that I like most of what I heard from him about policy, but the policy continues to come from this council, who make sure that we're fighting for affordable housing, for development wherever it's appropriate.

City of Yes being a great example.

The council continues to engage.

Mr.

Thomas, sorry, sorry, apologies.

I encourage you to confirm.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'm going to ask the next panelists to unmute themselves.

You may begin.