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Testimony Before the New York City Charter Revision Commission

By:

February 11, 2025

Thank you Chair and Commissioners for the opportunity to testify before this Charter Revision Commission. My name is Barika Williams and I am the Executive Director for The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD). ANHD is a membership organization of NYC neighborhood-based housing and economic development groups, including CDCs, affordable housing developers, supportive housing providers, community organizers, and economic development advocates and service providers. Our mission is to build community power to win affordable housing and thriving, equitable neighborhoods for all New Yorkers. We believe housing justice is economic justice is racial justice.  

ANHD also convenes the Thriving Communities Coalition (TCC) - a citywide movement of grassroots organizing, advocacy, policy, and technical assistance groups working across issue areas and neighborhoods. ANHD and TCC are united in the belief that our current ad-hoc approach to planning and land use in New York City does not effectively deliver for most New Yorkers, and that we need meaningful reform to ensure a more equitable distribution of development and investment to truly overcome inequality, exclusion, and displacement.

ANHD and TCC have long called for a comprehensive planning approach for NYC that aligns and coordinates existing plans, centers racial, economic, health, and climate equity alongside intentional, robust, and representative community engagement to help build trust and work to achieve fairer, more informed, more democratic decisions and outcomes citywide and in our neighborhoods. 

To help advance a more equitable and comprehensive approach to planning we call on this commission to: 

  1. Amend the charter to mandate that NYC create a comprehensive plan on a recurring timeline, with the following essential components:

    1. Creation of a Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee to oversee the process

    2. Establishment of equity goals, including

      1. Ensuring an equitable distribution of development and investment

      2. Increasing access to affordable housing

      3. Promoting social, economic & racial integration

      4. Advancing environmental justice, open and green space

    3. Establishment of citywide and Community District level targets across a host of issues, including for

      1. Housing

      2. School seats & community facilities

      3. Open space

      4. Infrastructure & Resiliency

      5. Through the coordination of existing plans and mandates (such as the Fair Housing Plan)

    4. Committing all 59 Community Districts to create Community District level plans to achieve these targets, with the necessary resources to conduct this process

    5. Requiring land use, annual expense budget, capital budget, and policy to align with the comprehensive plan so as to achieve its key targets 

This is also an opportunity to advance one key component and outcome of comprehensive planning by better aligning land use and budget decisions to achieve the targets set by the Fair Housing Plan (Charter, Section 16-a). The Fair Housing Plan already requires the setting of 5-year housing production targets for each Community District - a goal we would seek to require for a host of additional issues through Comprehensive Planning as per point c. of our proposal above.

To begin to advance one crucial component of the outcomes we seek with comprehensive planning, we call on this commission to:

  1. Make the Fair Housing Plan enforceable by amending the charter to

    1.  Encourage and advantage ULURP proposals found to be in compliance with reaching Fair Housing Plan targets by moving them through an expedited process

      1. This could be done in a tiered fashion where 100% affordable developments could be expedited in all geographies while mixed-income and market-rate developments could be expedited only in those geographies deemed “low-affordability” by the Fair Housing Plan

    2. Require that the capital budget details how it will advance the targets established by the Fair Housing Plan

      1. Including how it will address the obstacles to increasing the amount of “neighborhood equity investments” in underserved areas identified in the Fair Housing Plan’s strategic equity framework

We call on this commission to take bold, systemic steps that begin to move NYC away from a land use and zoning regime that not only has held back equitable housing production but has deepened inequity across a variety of issues that impact every New Yorker. 

We believe our proposals strike the right balance between meeting citywide needs and empowering local communities to have more of a say in the planning process. To build a more just and fair city, we call on this Commission to amend the charter to advance comprehensive planning and fair housing so as to better align and consolidate our planning processes, center them in equitable goals to achieve equitable targets, and empower everyday New Yorkers to plan and build neighborhoods where they and future generations can thrive. Thank you. 

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