Council Member Rafael Espinal questioning the panel of Mayoral Administration representatives. Image credit: CityLand

Council Members expressed concern-ridden comments on the proposal’s plans for neighborhood job programs and the proposed housing’s lack of deep affordability levels.  On March 7, 2016, the New York City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public hearing on the East New York Community Plan. If approved, the Plan would make East New York, and portions of Cypress Hills and Ocean Hill, located in Brooklyn, the first area to be rezoned under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Housing New York plan.

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Ross F. Moskowitz. Image Credit: Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP.

At the CityLaw Breakfast on September 5, 2014, Carl Weisbrod laid out the De Blasio Administration’s housing policy. As was widely reported, the City will look to implement mandatory inclusionary housing on all City-sponsored rezonings. One of the first tests of this new policy is the privately sponsored Astoria Cove development in Queens, where an affordable component will likely be required if approved under ULURP. (more…)

Councilmember David Greenfield, chair of the Committee on Land Use. Image credit: William Alatriste/New York City Council

City officials questioned on policy to protect New York’s industrial sector.  On May 6, 2015 the City Council Committee on Land Use held an oversight hearing on industrial land use policy in New York City with a focus on protecting and encouraging the City’s industrial sector from encroaching alternative uses.  In his opening remarks, Councilmember and Land Use Chair David Greenfield emphasized as ineffective the City’s policy of designating Industrial Business Zones without changing the underlying zoning to protect industry from competing commercial uses and pointed out the importance of protecting the City’s industrial sector, comprising 10 percent of the local private sector workforce, frequently made of small businesses employing forty people or less, and paying significantly higher wages than the service sector.

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