The NYC Commission to Strengthen Local Democracy hosted a public hearing on Bronx land use issues at the Bronx Museum of the Arts on May 12. The Commission says its goal is to improve and restore public confidence in City government by enhancing accountability and transparency.

 

The Commission reviews New York City’s Charter, holds hearings, and proposes initiatives to strengthen democracy. Meetings like the one held at the Bronx Museum of Arts are intended to use testimony from the public to help develop proposals to improve city government. The meeting was also open to join via Zoom.

 

The May 12th meeting focused on land use, including fair housing and community planning, expanding ULURP (the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) pre-certification, and preventing fraud in City office leases. As reported, the ULURP process for the Kingsbridge Armory is currently underway.

 

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson was the first to testify at the hearing and asked for the commission “to consider restoring and strengthening New York City’s ‘Fair Share’ principles so that no single community board bears an outsized burden of shelters and migrant facilities.”

 

New York City’s Fair Share criteria, adopted in 1991, attempts to foster an equitable distribution of public facilities throughout the City. Gibson argued that low-income working-class communities of color carry a disproportionate burden when it comes to shelters and migrant locations.

 

The borough president said, “Across 59 community districts across five boroughs, nine currently have zero shelters at all. Meanwhile, Bronx Community Boards 5 and 6 have more than 20 each, despite already facing high levels of poverty rates.” This was also a topic of discussion at a previous Unity Democratic Club meeting, as reported, in relation to a new shelter for the South Bronx.

 

Gibson continued, “The issue has only been worsened by this administration’s handling of our migrant crisis, and we understand that it was a migrant crisis none of us knew would happen, but we recently opened a 2,200-bed, single men’s facility at 322 Bruckner Boulevard [in the South Bronx]. We got very little notification, no advance, no community engagement at all.”

District 16 City Council Member Althea Stevens shared a similar sentiment, “We need a fair share approach, every community should contribute. No neighborhood should have to carry a disproportionate burden like mine has currently. Equally important is to ensure that the city charter includes a clear, accessible process for community planning.”

 

District 12 City Council Member Kevin Riley said,” We definitely need to build housing, but housing alone is not enough. We must approach building housing more comprehensively, and address community needs with investments in support of services such as sewer infrastructure, open spaces, schools, libraries, and public transportation.”

 

Riley added, “Not all neighborhoods have the same needs, these important investments must be tailored accordingly through a community-focused plan and process.”

 

Robin Rollan, a member of Bronx Community Board 7, testified and made clear her statements were entirely her own, “What concerns me is the proliferation of buildings and housing, but not services and resources for the community. We definitely need to have the resources to sustain all this development, and not just these resources, but building for the community of the future, the children.”

 

The Commission will be holding a hearing on budget transparency on Tuesday, June 17, at Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center, 2nd Floor, 3415 Olinville Avenue in Olinville, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. To join via Zoom, visit www.thecommission.nyc.