BROOKLYN, NY – In response to City of Yes for Housing Opportunity negotiations, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso released the following statement:
“Mayor Bloomberg contextually zoned already low-density neighborhoods, making it even harder to build new housing, and now, by exempting the same neighborhoods from the City of Yes proposal, Mayor Adams and the City Council are choosing to make the same mistakes.
The consequences of today’s decision to exempt R1-2A, R2A, and R3A contextual districts from City of Yes are severe:
- There will be effectively no new housing options for people to live in these communities – which means these neighborhoods remain exclusive and the legacies of segregation and exclusionary zoning live on unfettered.
- The housing pressure on every other neighborhood will go up – which means if Queens or Staten Island doesn’t grow, Brooklyn is asked to do more than our fair share.
City of Yes was never going to fix everything. It was never an affordability strategy, it was never a production plan, and it was never a panacea for our city’s housing crisis.
But it was at least a modest opportunity to begin addressing the discriminatory zoning practices that force low-income, Black and Brown neighborhoods to do all of the work of building new housing while low-density neighborhoods get away with contributing nothing.
I urge Mayor Adams and the City Council to carefully consider the ramifications of these exemptions and be wary not to enhance the harms of administrations past.”
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