Council Member Won responds to public testimony on charter change reality

So do you guys all live above Trader Joe's and Iron 5 Golf?

Which building is it?

I live above them.

Okay, so you live on top of Trader Joe's.

Where do you guys live?

I live on the corner of Jackson Avenue, or not Jackson, 21st Street and 46th Avenue.

I'm above the children's pediatric dentist.

It's a building that was built in 2015.

Okay, I know which building that is.

How about you?

I live at Prime, but I'm mostly speaking up for the lower 3-4 storage buildings, especially the one that's immediately adjacent to the west of TD Bank.

Did they give you the right to attorney to testify on their behalf?

No, but I'm just speaking on behalf of the community.

Okay.

And where do you live?

I live in Prime Building.

But the petitions we collected, a majority of it is from...

Which one is the prime building?

Prime building is one applicant is saying that it's about the same height on the corner of the...

So the one on top of Iron Golf?

For Trader Joe's, yes.

On top of, so the three of the guys live in that building.

That's right.

Got it.

And then you live above the dentist building.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

So are you guys aware of props two to four that passed last year and that the mayor currently supports, like Zora Mamdani supported prop two to four?

It was a charter change, which means that even if I vote no, it will be overruled by the president and the mayor, and this project will go through.

So I appreciate your analogy, but we've been through this so many times in Long Island City and in the district overall, in District 26.

That no matter how much we fight, these projects pass, and it's the truth.

Because at the end of the day, every single year, you know what the mayor does, no matter who the mayor is, take away our community's power.

Not only is the community board advisory, but now even the council's vote is basically advisory, because the mayor and the borough president will overrule our vote.

So I just want to be honest with you because I know especially as someone who's very

very active in the Working Families Party.

These are real things that we have to grapple with on the left because it's not okay.

You can't tout yourself as a socialist and then also be like, oh, you know what?

Like you don't have a voice and it's not a real democracy.

We're going to continue to have meetings.

I know we had already asked the development team to meet with you all.

So that you have a direct line of conversation with them.

Today's public hearing is to put it on public record of what they've modified so far.

So we'll have another meeting because I understand your frustrations of how hard it is to own a building.

Like I'm still a renter.

I've been a renter my whole life.

I probably will never be able to own anything in Long Island City.

But we'll have another offline meeting with, and I'll make sure that you guys are all invited so that we could have another conversation with the new modifications for the building and try to figure something out.

But I just want to set realistic expectations because this is the reality of our laws now.

Thank you, Councilmember.

May I say something?

Sure.

So if you were to schedule a meeting for the community with the developer, would you please take into consideration of working families who are not able to be present here today due to the timing of it?

For sure.

Yeah, I agree.

So there are so many people.

So the notarized petitions that we collected were down 46th Avenue all the way around to the back of, so that's 45th Road.

Yeah, I saw.

And I saw your flyering.

I see you're organizing.

I've seen all the petitions you've got.

A ton of people could not show up today because this was set for 11 a.m.

On a working day.

Yep.

Those people would love to speak either on camera, but again, their work stops them from doing so.

But they can submit testimony.

Correct.

We've asked them to submit it, but please just take that into consideration.

We will.

I'll make sure, and it's very clear that the development team is very amenable to our concerns, so I'll make sure that if we have the meeting,

that there's child care and also a remote option so that people who can't be there in person can be there, that it will be after hours so that it's not during work hours.

Thank you.

All right, this panel is now excused.

Thank you so much for being here and for your testimony.

We have one more panelist, Solav.

Last name Sola?

Oh, next one.

Okay.

Now we'll move to online testimony.

We have Matthew Lulo.

Matthew Lulo, Gilbert Chan, Melissa Guan, Vanessa Leong.

We'll start with Matthew.