Lacey Tober testifies on Intro 578 for Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso

I will now call the next panel, Lacey Tober, Nora Lewis, and Leah Archibald.

Lacey, you like to be, can begin?

Sure, I can start.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for holding this hearing today.

I'm here representing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to provide testimony specifically on Intro 578.

Which would reform the city's industrial business zone boundary commission.

While the borough president feels that convening the commission is too risky at this time, for reasons I will explain, he does support the changes proposed in Intro 578.

The bill will help protect industrial businesses by adding commission members to be appointed by the speaker and the public advocate and requiring more considerations to inform any proposed boundary change.

Some background.

Mayor Bloomberg designated the 21 IBZs across the city in 2006 with the goal of supporting and preserving industrial businesses.

This designation included associated tax incentives and a commitment not to rezone land within the IBZs from manufacturing to residential.

However, recent administration...

proposals such as DCP's NYC Industrial Plan and SPS's Business Solutions Center's RFP have left industrial businesses and the nonprofits that support them fighting to keep their land and their funding.

In negotiations over the industrial plan, DCP referred to the IBZs as tax zones only and in their original draft proposed rezoning swaths of the IBZs for mixed use including residential.

Meanwhile, SBS is threatening to defund the critical industrial business solutions providers, IBSPs, who work with businesses and all the IBZs.

These policies are short-sighted because the industrial sector plays a critical role in the mayor's economic justice goals.

Manufacturing generally provides living wages with low barriers to entry.

I have a whole bunch of stats here about that for you that I don't have time to go through.

But rezoning changes across the city have led to a 5% decrease in land zone for manufacturing since 2010.

And so that has led to a high demand for manufacturing space.

Our goal then should be to strengthen the IBZs and secure protections for industrial jobs.

We don't need the IBZ Boundary Commission to do this.

We can and should achieve it through zoning change.

DCP created new manufacturing zones in City of Yes for economic opportunity, and BP Reynoso is calling on this administration to codify IBZ protections promised in 2006

by mapping these zones within all the existing IBZ boundaries, and also critically to support the work of the IBZs across the city.

Thank you.

This.