Council Member Restler remarks on Park Avenue rezoning history and yeshiva capacity

So, Member Ressa, four remarks.

Just asking which of the projects it was this morning.

So thank you so much, Chair Lewis, for your great leadership of this committee.

It is always a pleasure to be with you.

When I, before I took office in 2021, community leaders from across South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy asked me to meet about a critically important rezoning.

And it was proposed at the time as a handful of individual sites that would add housing, but more importantly, more urgently, add school capacity for

for the community in South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy and legalize existing yeshivas and build new yeshivas that could really meet the needs of the community.

I hear from families in South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy every single week who tell me that they're struggling to find affordable housing and the yeshivas are bursting at the seams and that we need more

capacity for both.

And it's been a winding, painful, frustrating process to get us here some five years later, literally.

But we're at the finish line of what is a critically important development.

project for the future of the Jewish community in South Williamsburg.

And I am enormously grateful, particularly the yeshiva administrators, and I see some of them here with me today, who have diligently fought hard to make sure that this stays on track and gets done.

The Department of City Planning insisted that this be one zoning application rather than a handful of individual applications, which then set off a series of implications around community investments that this development team would need to make.

And, you know, I always welcome community investments.

That's my job is to try to see those out every time at every opportunity.

But this development proposal in and of itself is a tremendous community investment by adding literally 2,500 yeshiva seats to our community.

So I'm glad, and I will just say one more thing, that I was already a critic of the environmental review process, but watching the Department of Transportation and the Department of Parks and Recreation, but especially DOT,

butcher the environmental review process and just enact their own policy agenda to have this development team go through hell was infuriating.

We lost years on this project because of the Department of Transportation's intransigence.

And I really, truly hope that Commissioner Flynn will whip the environmental review team into shape at DOT because what they have been doing is disgraceful.

That being said, I am thrilled that this proposal is before the council and moving forward and would welcome a very, very, very, very brief presentation from the applicant.

Thank you, Councilmember Ressler.

I will now call the applicant panel for this proposal, which consists of Benjamin Stark.

Council, can you please administer the oath?

Can you please raise your right hand and state your name for record?

Ben Stark, do you expect to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in your testimony this morning in response to council member questions?

Yes, I do, counsel.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You may now begin your testimony, which is limited to 10 minutes, and you should start to conclude your presentation after eight minutes.

When you begin your presentation, please restate your name and the name of your organization, and you may begin.