Chair Williams asks how Council should use CreateNYC's 10-year mark

Okay, and final loaded question.

As Create NYC reached its 10-year mark in 2027, how should the council use this moment?

And if this committee could take one step to move things forward, what should it be?

You know, there's a few things.

One is...

I always say that government has a lot of power because of funding, but also has a power of convening, right?

And that power of convening comes with a responsibility of leadership, right?

We all feel in the sector that we're a little unfocused because we don't have, you know, that agenda that we're talking about.

So how the council and the city administration can say, this is what we see, this is what we hear from our constituencies, this is what we're going to focus on.

And each of us, from our organizations, our roles, our missions, the resources that we have, we could all be plugging into that.

I'll just add that I think we need to create as well everything that Gonzalo said, but for that to rest on a capacity that can deliver.

We can talk about all these things, but if an institutional capacity is not able to really assess and provide the knowledge that we need to operationalize, that will be a failure in that next step.

And if you allow me 30 seconds more, right?

The other thing that we're seeing is we have been talking about how arts and culture can serve, you know, the city.

We also are an object of policy.

And one of the things that we're seeing is, and I hinted a little bit, is when big development comes to a neighborhood,

we make sure that we provide fire, safety, library, schools, parks, but we left arts and culture to the market.

Right.

Because we're private partners on that.

We're not planning, you know, for the long term.

We're not planning for the long term creation of those cultural assets that SIAP has mentioned are important to a neighborhood.

And when changes come, we're not even thinking about how we wrote them.

Right.

Kensington is one of the examples of neighborhoods that are being under, you know, rezoning.

You mentioned, you know, in Queens to go Queens, get the money.

If it's not for advocates like you, right, you know, there's nothing codified that looks at, you know, where are the cultural organizations?

What are the cultural assets that need to be anchored there?

And how do we attract new ones as we're going through redevelopment?

Yeah, I'm wondering if that's a bill, because I remember the council passed a law that requires racial impact statements on rezonings.

So I'm thinking about, you know, we have environmental impact.

I mean, to your point, there are checklists of things that we have to do when we do neighborhood plans.

And I don't think arts and culture is institutionalized in the same way.

So maybe that is an opportunity.

The only way we have a, sorry to interrupt.

I'm excited.

We had a policy recommendation that really looks at how we start looking at arts and culture assets as community amenities in the environmental impact.

And the only way that arts and culture enter now through that process is if, you know, there's a big brick and mortar landmark building.

Right.

So that says a lot about.

Yeah.

A part of why I entered for ours is because we had J-Cal, J-PAC and King Manor.

In the study map.

So we sort of had to talk about it because we had these sort of three cultural brick and mortar locations that were within the study map.

So that's definitely a good point.

Okay, thank you so much.

Every time you come, I'm like, I need to have a separate meeting.

So I'm going to try to make it.

that happened so I can like sit down and talk to you.

Yes, okay.

Thank you so much.