Council Member Louis asks about affordable cultural space created and lost

Thank you, Chair, Deputy Speaker.

I just have a quick question.

I know we all are very much aware of how many vacancies we see in storefronts across the city of New York.

That includes nonprofits and cultural spaces.

So I wanted to know how many affordable cultural spaces has Create NYC helped create or preserve since 2017?

I know you're only six months in, but would love if you could expound on that and how many were lost over the same period of time.

Yeah.

Through Create NYC, DCLA built and secured 165 units of affordable space, workspace for artists in particular.

I am not sure how much was lost in that time period.

I think the social impact of the arts study that's coming out does a very good job at showing how many

showing that kind of difference of nonprofits in the city 10 years ago from now.

Okay, but it would be good to know if we could have a follow-up on that.

Okay, yeah, it's a big, we didn't lose

All of the ones that Department of Cultural Affairs developed are still running, up and running.

But Space Works was functioning in the beginning of the plan and has since sunsetted.

So that's also why the Affordable Real Estate for Artists program kind of sunsetted as well.

But affordable space and affordable workspace for artists is also a really big priority for us.

And we're really looking into taking an all-of-government approach to understand how we do this.

Do you guys have an actual plan for that?

It's coming soon.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.