Yang backs ending ‘member deference’ to ease path for development

Politico

Janaki Chadha, 3.31.21

Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said Wednesday a City Council practice of deferring to local members on land use decisions is “not necessarily the ideal process” for approving development plans.

Details: Yang, during an interview with Carlo Scissura of the New York Building Congress, said allowing local members to kill rezonings makes it “a little bit too easy for someone to have a veto.”

“You have a lot of people who are for something, some people who don’t like it, and then there’s an individual Council member … That’s not necessarily the ideal process because if you have people frankly just adhering to political incentives, then it’ll become easier to say ‘no’, not ‘yes’ a lot of the time,” Yang said. “And sometimes that’s not the right answer.”

Yang, who called himself “very, very pro-growth and pro-development,” said he would be open to reviewing the process so it becomes “not as bottleneck-rich.”

“We need to satisfy communities’ concerns and we need to do things responsibly in a way that helps everyone,” Yang said. “But right now, job number one is just getting our city going again, and our city is not going to ever get back on its feet if we’re unable to build and develop.”

Context: The practice of member deference is unofficial but has yet to be seriously challenged. The closest a local member came to being overruled by his colleagues recently was in the case of Industry City, when Council Member Carlos Menchaca delayed and ultimately quashed a commercial campus in Sunset Park. Council members outside of the district voiced rare support for the project amid the economic devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Menchaca, who himself was briefly in the running for mayor, had the backing of Rep. Nydia Velázquez among others and was able to quash the deal.

Other comments: Yang identified himself as “one of, I believe, only two major mayoral candidates who has openly said that turning away Amazon and its 26,000 high-paying jobs was a mistake.”

“We wish we had those jobs right now, and they would have created an additional probably 100,000 additional service jobs in that community,” Yang said. He brought up Amazon while talking about a plan he’s endorsing to convert a swath of the Long Island City waterfront into a green energy hub.

Asked about rising crime, Yang said he wants to see the NYPD improve its clearance rate, or the portion of crimes it solves. “The fact is if you don’t catch someone, they might do it to someone else, so we have to hold the NYPD accountable, again, the way you would any organization,” he said.

“To effectuate that, we have to let the NYPD know that as long as you’re professionals, we’re behind you, we need the police,” Yang added. “When I talk to New Yorkers, public safety and crime are very, very high on their list of concerns. I talked to a Black community in southeast Queens and … they’re not talking about ‘defund,’ they’re asking for another precinct.”

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