Committee on Land Use · Thursday, March 9, 2023

The one where the Land Use chair promised to 'grill' the agency heads on their vacancy rates — and made good on it acros

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This is a Council preliminary budget hearing, not a rezoning. Three agencies file through to defend their numbers: Landmarks (Sarah Carroll), City Planning (Daniel Garodnick), and Technology & Innovation (Matthew Fraser). The through-line is staffing under austerity , Salamanca interrogates DCP's vacancy rate (the same line of questioning he runs every fiscal year), Landmarks defends a three-person headcount cut tied to two preservationist positions, and OTI defends Big Apple Connect spending with Charter and Altice. Council members push back on whether new housing units will reach the people

From the room

“our time frame for um actually moving through the designation process in the last few years has averaged around three months or four months”
— Lisa Kersavage

“with significant guidance and leadership from Councilmember Crystal Hudson, public engagement around our Atlantic Avenue mixed-use plan is well underway.”
— Daniel Garodnik

“studying potential changes to areas of Midtown South in Manhattan to ensure the long-term success of the area's legacy manufacturing zones”
— Daniel Garodnik

“even if we do have a sort of a partnership with a private uh entity, we have to do that work ourselves to ensure that it's accurate”
— Sarah Carroll

The decisions

01T2023-2991Filed

New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings on The Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Year 2024, The Preliminary Capital Plan for Fiscal Years 2024-2027, Fiscal 2024-2033 Preliminary Ten-Year Capital Strategy and The Fiscal 2023 Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report 10:30 a.m. Landmarks Preservation Commission 11:30 a.m. Department of City Planning 12:30 p.m. Department of Information, Technology & Telecommunications 1:30 p.m. Public Jointly with the Committee on Technology

City Planning laid out its FY24 preliminary budget at the hearing with no vote taken, pitching 348 authorized positions and $44.3M total spending against a net $4.8M cut, then absorbed Council pressure on planner vacancies, attrition, and why 2022 housing approvals still aren't under construction.

Mandatory inclusionary housing

Land-use review

CB Community Board 17 (Brooklyn)

Where it standsCB Community Board 17 (Brooklyn) ✓→Committee→Full Council

Legislation →ULURP case →

Also in the record

Records not linked to a specific agenda item

Questions & answers

Chris Marte (Chair Lewis as labeled): What do you project active headcount to be at end of fiscal year 2024?

Chris Marte (Chair Lewis as labeled): What factors led to the 3.5% increase in work permit applications in first four months of FY23 (4,234 vs 4,091)?

Chris Marte (Chair Lewis as labeled): With reduction of three positions, how will that impact processing of increased applications?

Chris Marte (Chair Lewis as labeled): Has LPC awarded any historic preservation grants to date in fiscal 2023?

Erik D. Bottcher: Given loss of historic structures due to owner neglect and contractor negligence, should we not be increasing funding to LPC rather than cutting headcount by three?

+35 more exchanges

Procedure

Chair recognizes Chair Lewis to begin line of questioning, followed by Council Member Bottcher — Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
Chair recognizes Council Member Hanks for questioning — Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
Chair recognizes Council Member Mealy for questioning — Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
Chair opens NYC Council preliminary budget hearing for Committee on Land Use joint with Technology — Rafael Salamanca, Jr.

+16 more procedural steps

The people

Public testimony: 2 in favor

Practitioners & applicants

Rafael Salamanca, Jr. · Arthur Ha · Sarah Carroll · Kamillah Hanks · Ari Kagan · Stuart Reed

The intelligence

Every parcel, owner, and applicant in this meeting, cross-referenced against Zonable’s NYC ownership, enforcement & legislative graph — the record behind the record.

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Owner portfolios, open OATH/ECB violations, 311 & DOB permits across every parcel discussed, developer track records, and an “ask this meeting” chat.

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