Victoria Hoffmel of Bay Ridge testifies on neighborhood planning and affordability

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Victoria Hoffmel.

I'm a resident of Bay Ridge.

I'm just going to talk about my neighborhood because I feel like every neighborhood is specific and unique, and I think that's how we have to look at it, and I don't feel this process is such.

So about 20 years ago, I worked with Councilman Gentile Teresa on Bay Ridge at the suggestion of the New York City Planning Department.

Volunteers went block by block carefully, creating a balance between the needs of residents, community facilities, and businesses.

That has been revoked from us.

At the same time, a representative's voice is being eliminated from the land use process.

It's very undemocratic.

My neighborhood also provides services to New Yorkers who live way beyond our boundaries through our plethora of schools, medical facilities, places of employment, senior services, and supportive housing for seniors and developmentally delayed adults.

We are lucky to have a mixed housing stock as a result of the immigrants who built it, believing in a social contract and in decent housing for all.

As a result, our communities economically, ethnically, and age diverse, and remains one of the most affordable and stable neighborhoods in the city.

At the same time, we have retained many rent-controlled apartments, and there are a few empty lots on which to develop.

For our largesse, we had approximately 800 homes raised and 7,000 residents displaced with the Verrazano Bridge.

When they got to the neighborhood.

We were then amputated from the rest of our community's Sunset Park through redlining.

We are taxed 60% more for properties that are worth less in downtown Brooklyn, have been charged so for more than four decades, and now find ourselves one of the 12 neighborhoods, senselessly and I would argue illegally, listed

on the chopping block of communities that need to provide more affordable housing through new construction.

I'd like to explain some of the current policies, how they're actually raising prices.

The mandatory inclusion in housing, the studio goes for approximately $500 to $1,300 above our market rate.

This in turn will further raise our property values and increase our unfair taxes, impacting both homeowners and renters.

The definition of affordable housing.

Affordability is now being defined by how many new housing units have been constructed in the last five years.

This definition is ludicrous, and if you notice, mentions nothing about what housing actually costs and nothing about our actual housing reality, but everything about real estate interests.

It is also biased against stable and already affordable communities.

Thank you.

I have some suggestions of what would help make our neighborhoods and other communities more affordable, but I'll send those in online.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You can also give that to the sergeant, and I'll take a look at that, Victoria.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, Josephine, followed by Rochelle.