Public testimony: Rafael Moure-Punnett (CB6) explains board's no vote on Phipps track record

Good afternoon.

Thank you, council members, for holding this hearing.

My name is Rafael Mori-Pinette.

I'm the district manager for Bronx Community Board 6.

The community board voted no on the sojourner Mavis pre-zoning, and I wanted to clarify some of the points made by the board in our letter to the committee.

Community Board 6, this area is an area where a lot of as-of-right development happens.

There are regularly...

Tall buildings built out of houses that are combined in multiple lots into one new building.

As a result, Community Board 6 has a very active development market, and we are doing more than our fair share of new housing construction.

for the city.

This rezoning, this discretionary rezoning before the council is not going to make or break the real estate market in our district.

And we have encouraged the council to vote no on this because we know that FIPS can still build 300 units on this law without a rezoning.

And we believe that the city council should really only reward responsible developers with rezoning.

A developer that doesn't have a good track record in a neighborhood is not a good candidate for discretionary rezoning.

The board hears from, on a regular basis,

many FIPS tenants, including a tenant last night at our Housing and Land Use Committee, with serious concerns about FIPS's management practices, some of which have been brought up today.

And, you know, FIPS tenants organized and a federal class action lawsuit was filed against FIPS, alleging these

management practices that cause severe harm to the tenants, whether they're repairs, rent recertification, or things of that nature, the buildings in this rezoning area are

referred to in our letter as having high housing code violations and serious

problems for the tenants in that area.