NYC Chooses Between YIMBYism and Feudalism: Tibita Kaneene on Radio Abundance

Transcript

0:00 Hello and welcome to Radio Abundance. We are here today with Tibita Kaneene. He is the political director of the New York City New Liberals. We've had him on this podcast before. We had him on to chat a little bit about the New York City primary election, I think just before it all went down, which was very fun. And so we could even talk about that. But Tibita reached out and said, "Hey, there's some pretty key stuff on the ballot for housing in New York coming up and we should talk about it." And we said, yes, hell yes, let's do that immediately. And then Tibita, I had to flake on you just slightly just by a few days because of travel logistics with all the various national summit on housing affordability and abundance conference and DC trip and all this stuff. And that turns out to have been kind of a blessing since in the last few days, there's been some nefarious NIMBY bullshit around this, which is fun to talk about and a little gets your spicy clicks. So that's fun, too. So we got to both talk about what the actual proposals are and and all the drama around it. And so Tibita Kanene, welcome to back to Radio Abundance. Tell the people what they need to know.

1:09 Thanks a lot, Steve. Thanks for having me. So what we have here are five proposals to change the New York City charter, which is at the New York City Constitution. The way this has come about is the mayor has paneled a charter review commission. That's the process by which we can amend the New York City charter. That commission is appointed by the mayor and then they're supposed to go off independently and evaluate what, if any, things about the charter need to change. So they did that. That was a very long process. Took several months, many public meetings. They produced a very long report and they come up with five proposals, which will be on the ballot.

1:59 November. Three of them apply to housing to make it easier to build and renovate new housing. And one is about managing the city map. That's pretty straightforward. And the other one is about moving the elections from off years one year after the presidential election to be every four years the same year as the presidential election. That's to increase turnout, save costs, and be more transparent. So that's kind of straightforward easy one. The map one also is just modernizing it, making it digital. And currently it's each of the five boroughs has a separate map and making those all into one map. But the meat of it are three proposals which in different and thoughtful ways seek to streamline and ease the process by which new housing is approved.

3:03 So the general way that new housing is approved in New York City is through what's called the ULERT process, universal land use review process. That process has five steps.

3:19 One, the first step is there is a Department of City Planning review and pre-certification. That's the longest, most arduous one that involves the environmental review, right? That part takes years, millions of dollars. And if you make it through that process and you're pre-certified, then it starts on a time clock. So there's the first step is the community board review. That's 30 days. That's an advisory ruling. So the community board can weigh in, but they can't kill it. And then the borough president also has 30 days to review. Also on an advisory basis. And then it goes to city planning for 60 days. City planning can veto it. Followed by the city council has 60 days, also with veto power. And then the mayor's office can also review and veto. So many, many veto points in the process.

4:17 And then the mayor's office is designed to involve community input through the community board, borough president, and of course, city council. Of course, it has its own local element.

4:30 So each of these three proposals would circumvent this ULERT process in different ways. So the first one allows projects to go through the board of standards and appeals or the DSA. And that's kind of like the Supreme Court of land use. So it allows you to, if you have decisions that you don't like, that's made by the Department of Buildings, whether it's through the zoning law or ULERT process, you can appeal to this BSA and, and they can, and they can change the decisions, but much like the Supreme Court, they can, they can decide whether to take your case or not.

5:09 So proposal one would say, any project that is both publicly funded and affordable can go straight to the BSA, can skip this whole ULERT process. So that that's the one, that's the one way that can go straight to the BSA. The other way is there is what's called the fair housing, the fair housing framework.

5:37 So what the city council is in process of doing is determining the 12 community districts out of the 51 that build the lease housing and any new housing that includes income restricted or affordable housing in those districts gets to be fast tracked. This is very interesting because one of the controversies around housing is that, you know, the city tries to build in certain places that are less, say less dense and less expensive. And the more expensive, denser neighborhoods like in Manhattan don't build housing for a variety of reasons. So I actually live in the Upper West Side, which is one of these 12 districts.

6:25 These, these are going to be determined in by October of 2026, but it's almost certain that, that our district will be one of those 12. We, we, for example, in 2024 produce zero units of affordable housing. So the idea is that the, say that one more time, uh, in 2024, um, my community district, which is the entire Upper West Side produced zero units of affordable housing. Um, by contrast, the top 10 community districts, um, produce over 750 units each of affordable housing. Um, so this is one of the, one of the issues that, you know, this, these world was tried to, um, try to correct. And a lot of it is, you know, you have, it's not, some of it is NIMBYism. People don't want, you know, new housing, new affordable housing, but a lot of it is well-intentioned, you know, what, you know, as a time we call everything bagel liberalism, where we have a housing, um, construction project, and we wanted to have everything, you know, free sitting pool, 100% affordable, um, a variety of things that make it, uh, more arduous and less, um, economical to, um, to do. Not to mention years of environmental review, um, and just adding, adding many, um, veto points, um, in the process.

7:54 So, uh, the fair housing framework seeks to, um, get around that. The other issue with, you know, certain neighborhoods is the notion of member deference, which is, um, the idea that the city council, which has, you know, as veto power in the line use process, defers to the local council person. So out of the 51 city council people, if the local person does not like a project, the other council people defer to that council member and vote against it. Let's, let's stay on that for a good long time. Cause we had a Congressman Richie Torres on this show and he called member deference in New York city. This doesn't exist like everywhere. This might be a new concept to some people. He called member deference in New York city, like having your own, um, like medieval fiefdom, right? The idea that, you know, we talk endlessly about the NIMBY veto and the vitocracy and the idea that someone from the, you know, people in the community can come and say, I don't like this thing that is vaguely near me and how unrepresentative the five people who show up at city hall are to the whole community. We talk about why city council members can veto things that don't seem like they should be vetoable anyways. Like there's a lot of problems with the NIMBY vitocracy. Here's something more extreme. You're telling me that if actually, if there's a project and the neighborhoods font, you know, and if regardless of what the other city council members think, regardless of like the actual, like the city council, let me tell me, tell me if I got this right. The council member for that area can say, I don't like this. And I am the boss of this area.

9:37 I have the tribune's veto for this and for my whole little area. And I can just say no to stuff. Is that true? Is this a little medieval fiefdom? Well, that's, that's true. And it happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, this is one of the things, one of the major things that these um, proposals seek to circumvent. So I probably don't like it when you take their power away from them, even though, even when their power is stupid. So that, is that why they're all up in arms? They don't want to lose their special member deference fiefdom veto? Yes. Yes. That is why. Um, and also, you know, some community boards don't like it. Um, you know, all the community boards had a chance to weigh in on, on these proposals. Most of them, uh, were against it. My community board actually was one of two, um, that actually supported these proposals for the, for the most part. Um, in fact, for this, for this proposal, um, for fast, for fast tracking, um, certain projects to the BSA, we actually suggested more projects. Tell me what that acronym means. So the current, the current, um, rule says a project that is publicly funded and a hundred percent affordable can go straight to the BSA. We said we should expand that to include. Sorry, pause again, just for like people who are not informed, maybe it's just me and I'm a stupid idiot. I'm pretending that the world is, but I think acronyms, especially local acronyms we had to define. So you've said. Go to the board of standards and appeals. So what I described as the, the land use Supreme court, right? And skip the land use process.

11:24 Um, the multi-step land use process and go straight to a five member board of appeals. Um, and not have to go through city council, community board, the mayor's office, just it's the one, one step approval process. So as a proposal is written, it's only, uh, there's two prongs. One prong is if a project is publicly funded a hundred percent and a hundred percent affordable. We suggested that we add projects that are partially affordable. So as long as you have 10% affordable and are publicly funded, then you can go straight to the board of standards and appeals. Um, so we, as a community board, I think, you know, we've, we've realized, you know, there's a housing crisis and the only answer to that is more supply. Um, so I think we're one of the leaders in trying to be thoughtful about, uh, how to build more housing. And we've done so despite the fact that all of these proposals, um, most of them, you know, lessen the power of the community board, you know, anything that goes around, you have been also going on the community board. So, um, I think that's why many community boards are against them. Right. Um, but, uh, you know, if, if your goal is to actually, you know, improve the affordability and overall lives of your constituents, then I think you should be for, for these proposals. Um, so, and it is a good reminder, right? You are not just the political director of the New York city, new liberals, like you are on the community board. Is it the, is it for the upper west side? What's the, what is the, what are the boundaries?

13:04 Yep. I'm on, I'm on community board seven. It's the entire upper west side. So from 59th street to 110th street, the Hudson river and the center park, the entire upper west side.

13:19 There's 50 people on the, uh, community board. And then I'm co-chair of the housing and land use committee. That committee has, I think 17 people on it. Nice. How did a YIMBY sneak onto the community board for the upper west side? Well, I was appointed by YIMBY, um, Mark Levine, who is the borough president and, uh, soon to be a controller of New York city. So, um, you know, he's a very outspoken public, uh, YIMBY. He was looking for YIMBYs to appoint. Um, uh, and I was, I was one of them. So very nice. Um, so how then are the, uh, feudal lords who don't like these proposals, how are they trying to sabotage them? It's like, there's some election shenanigans. It involves the BOE or the board of elections. So we've got, what's their plan. So there are two things going on. One was that, so I mentioned that the mayor's, the mayor's office created a charter review commission.

14:23 Um, now the city council can also do the same thing and they did. So at the same time, the mayor did it, the city council chartered its own, uh, review commission. And, uh, but there's also a law that says if the mayor puts proposals on the ballot, then nothing else can go on the ballot, right? So he can, uh, I guess, um, pretty much cancel or delay any, any city council proposals, which, which is what happened. Um, they tried to change that law. They were unable to do so. So their proposals would probably go on the ballot next year. Um, subsequent to the charter review commission voting on July 21st, on the final language and final proposals. Um, many of the city council people, um, signed the letter, um, opposing the proposal saying people should vote against them. Um, only supposedly are supported by many people, you know, progressives, you know, moderates. Um, you know, Brad Lander is very much in support of them. Um, and on that, on that issue, he has, uh, Brad Lander did apparently, um, call the, uh, the board of elections plan Trumpian overreach. Yeah. Both a good quote and sounds pretty true. Yeah. So, so yeah, so once they, so they signed, they signed the letter opposing the, um, proposals on the merits, which I guess that that part is fine, right? They're just saying people should vote against these proposals. Um, but then when that didn't work, um, uh, council, uh, speaker Adrian Adams and the other leadership wrote a letter last week to the board of elections, asking them to remove these proposals from the ballot completely. Their reasoning is that, or their argument is that the proposals don't clearly explain the ramifications, um, of the changes, uh, namely that it would take a lot of power away from the city council. They think that this has not been adequately, um, explained.

16:47 That that's it. That's the crux of the thing, isn't it? It's like, it's not about housing. It's shouldn't the voters know that this will take away my feudal privilege. That's, is that not what they are saying? Um, they're saying that I would say it's pretty disingenuous. I mean, the language is pretty clear. Um, you know, it's been, it's been public for many months. It's been discussed in public hearings. There's a very long report, um, that one can read. It's, it's written in pretty plain language. You know, the, the EULA process has five steps. The people, you know, the organizations, including the community board and city council mayor's office that are among those five steps have some say, if you're proposing something that goes around those five steps, then yeah, those entities no longer have as much say. It's pretty clear. Um, I don't think it's ambiguous, uh, at all. Um, you can, you can say you don't like it, but to say it's unfair, uh, I think it's being disingenuous.

17:54 Yeah. Um, you know what? So today, as we recorded is Monday, September 8th at about 5:40 PM Eastern time. And I believe the board of the BOE is meeting tomorrow. Let's do it. I'll get, I'll find a way I'll figure out how to get this out in time. What are they doing tomorrow? Let's have the suspense. What's the conversation tomorrow? What are we expecting? What are they talking about? Uh, the, I think you said the board of elections is meeting tomorrow. Yeah. So they're ruling on, I believe the ruling on if they have the power to make this change, um, by change, uh, we're talking about removing these proposals from the ballot in November. So not discussing whether that's a good or bad thing. They're discussing whether they have the power to do it. Uh, correct. Correct. I believe so. If they have the power, will they do it? I'm not sure. Uh, I don't think so, but I haven't, I haven't talked to anyone who I feel can say definitively what's going to happen.

18:53 Yeah. Speaking of that, right. So let's, all right. So there's this member deference, feudal fiefdom stuff, and that's a whole drama, but it's ultimately a side drama to whether this actually, hopefully to whether this actually like to what the voters think, uh, in like, very soon, like two months. So, um, what do we think are the electoral odds of this, if it survives to the election? And of course, it'll, it'll pass pass. I mean, that's why, I mean, that's why they're up in arms. I mean, if they thought they could, I mean, if they thought they could defeat it just by public advocacy, they, you know, which is what they, which is what they attempted starting in late July, then they would do so. But, um, I mean, I also think, you know, mom, Don is going to win. Um, I can't imagine him coming out against these things. Um, as you mentioned, uh, Lander has already come out for them. Uh, I haven't really seen any, I haven't really seen any major democratic policy groups come out against these proposals.

20:00 Um, yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna ask you that next. We've got our sort of quad of mayoral candidates as of this moment. Uh, Eric Adams seems to hate Andrew Cuomo more than he likes the idea of Saudi Arabia. Um, so we've got, uh, Zoran Mondani, uh, Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Curtis Lee. Uh, you may, uh, this is, these are a, this is Eric Adams idea. Yes. And then it sounds like Zoran is not his commission. Yeah. So Eric Adams, Eric Adams appointed the commission. Um, so of course, he's not going to oppose it. Um, and yeah, no one, none of the other candidates. No one's talking about it. No one's mentioned it. It's, it's better for the mayor's office. Um, right. Uh, it's better for the mayor's ability to produce housing, which at this juncture is politically good. Right. Eric Adams likes it.

20:55 I think rightfully so talks about how much housing he's been able to build. Um, during his administration and changes like this would allow the mayor to build housing more, more easily. Um, so that's why, that's why most mayors, you know, would support this.

21:18 How, um, you know, the last time we talked was right before the election, right? Uh, and, uh, and a little, um, you know, and it was right in the throes of our Yimby abundance left Yimby Progressive Abundance, left abundance community being like, I don't know what we, what to do with Zoran. Like, he seems very cool. We all thought he wasn't going to be good on this. And then like in the last possible minute, he's talking about abundance. I still think the coolest thing that happened in the primary and the most telling thing was that he shouted out Jersey cities construction and said, New York city should do that. That I think is iconic, not because that's a nerdy, like a pro Yimby abundance take. But after that I went in and I tried to find examples of New York city politicians, especially in competitive primaries, praising Jersey city, not just as like acceptable people across the river, but actively saying New York city should do what they've done in Jersey city to be to, I found nothing. Um, so, you know, and now it's been a few months, it's still a couple months before the election. I haven't heard Zoran talk too much about housing in this time, which is fine. He has other things to campaign on. Um, I, I have, you know, heard those little whispers from people in the, you know, different communities who are saying he seems pretty practical, right? In the sense that like, I like to say Zoran's not winning because he's a socialist. He's winning because he's social. Like for the first time in the last few years, he seems to have figured out that socialists can win as long as they seem friendly and social and like, they like other people. Similarly, I think he grasps the idea that he has a once in a lifetime shot to like do the things he's talked about and popularizing them. And he does actually have to be effective, which does seem, I think, to mean building a lot of housing and God willing, you know, people like Brad Lander, like Chiyose, like Zellner Myrie, who are friends and allies of him, help bring him in the right direction. But I am just curious, like your pulse, your community's pulse, how are we feeling about Zoran now? A couple months after the primary, a couple months before the general? Oh yeah, I mean, I'm feeling good. Uh, I plan on voting for him in the election. Um, he won, he won the Democratic primary by 12 points. I'm a Democrat. Uh, the only reason I would support, you know, a third party candidate was if I thought the election was somehow unfair, or I had, you know, there was some, you know, ethical concern with, with the Democratic nominee or something. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm a happy warrior. I'm a big tent person. And I focus more on policy, things like abundance and, you know, other things that I, that I think are, would be most consequential for, for New Yorkers and people around the world. So, um, you know, even before the primary, I was encouraged by, you know, Zoran's comments in the New York Times saying that he has come around on the fact that private, privately, um, privately built housing supply is, is central, you know, to solving the housing crisis, you know, and then he went on Derek Thompson's podcast, you know, they didn't agree on everything, but, you know, he seemed at least open-minded and has changed his mind on a few things. And then subsequent to that, you know, there've been many conversations, you know, with people that I know, um, that have been fruitful and encouraging. Um, and then, you know, I think what's important, um, regardless of who wins, um, is a lot of it is who is appointed. So even, even with these proposals that we're discussing, for instance, the Board of Standards and Appeals that we were just talking about is completely appointed by the mayor, right? All five people, right? There are some requirements, like one has to be an architect, one has to be an engineer, you know, um, but you can appoint whoever he wants. Um, same thing with, you know, the city, the city planning commission, right? Which affects housing, uh, 13 members, seven are appointed by the mayor, you know, one, one by each borough president, one by the public advocate. So the mayor can appoint a majority, does appoint a majority to that city planning commission. Um, the rent guidelines board, you know, the rent freeze is a big, is a big issue. Um, uh, the mayor appoints all nine people on that board, which decide the actual rent increases for rent stabilized units. So I think a lot of it will depend on the kind of people that he appoints, um, and, uh, the kind of consensus that, you know, can be built or is building, you know, in city council and community boards and, you know, you know, up and down the government, but I'm, I'm hopeful. I think that on a lot of issues that, you know, we care about, like housing, transit, um, you know, energy, that there is, uh, a very practical, uh, momentum around trying to supply more, more of the good things that, that people like.

26:16 And, uh, and that, you know, Zoran is, you know, astute enough to know that and in depth enough to hopefully make it happen. Yeah. I'd love, I'd love to press on you just a little bit more and, uh, and you can let me know if that's cool. Uh, but, uh, because, um, I just think this is cool and like interesting and like revelatory. And there's probably, possibly even literally a million more people who have gone on this journey that you have gone on, which is to say like the last time we talked right before the primary, I think like dollars to donuts, head to head, you probably would have gone Cuomo over Momdani. Cuomo is still in the race, but, and you're saying your votes are in over him. I just don't think you to be to Kanene are anybody's party apparatchik. I don't, I think it's not just because of the D by his name. I think you've warmed up to him and I am very interested in what that, what that journey has been over like, what I guess would be what, two, three months, something like that.

27:14 Um, yeah, I would, I would say it's, you know, listening to him and his surrogates, um, speak about the issues, um, talking to some of these, um, some of these people. Um, but really, like I said, uh, we had a primary, um, he won. And that's the process by which we, as a party decide who is, uh, going to be our nominee. Um, and there are things that I disagree with them about, like, like the rent freeze. Um, that being said, they asked the question about the rent freeze at the debate and everyone raised their hand except for Cuomo actually. Um, but yeah, so the, the point is to work on, um, work on the administration, the things on which we disagree. Um, you know, I think last time we talked about our grades that the new liberals had done. Um, and you know, most of the candidates, we graded out pretty poorly on many of the important issues, housing, transit, education. Um, you know, I, I think we gave, we gave Zoran, you know, Ds and Fs on most, on most issues. Um, so that, you know, we don't agree with him on everything. Um, but we're working, we're trying to work with the administration where we can.

28:36 And frankly, most of the leading candidates were pretty bad on a lot of stuff. You know, for instance, education, it was hard to even find statements on education for any of the candidates outside of two issues. One is providing childcare. Uh, and the other is, you know, the specialized high school achievement test, you know, whether people should, whether the schools should use that as a primary or, I guess, sole admission criterion. Um, but I mean, contrasting that to like the election in 2017 with, uh, sorry, 2013 with de Blasio or of course with Bloomberg who ran education as, as like the major issue, there was just not much policy conversation on that or really a lot of things. Um, it was largely a referendum on Cuomo's past.

29:33 Um, Mom Donnie's youth. Um, and then, you know, a few issues that were highlighted by the candidates, affordability, um, you know, free buses and things like that. Um, so, so there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that we just, that remains to be seen, um, on how, on how Mom Donnie or anyone would, would govern, I guess. I mean, you mentioned his surrogates and for me, that's the big thing too, right? Like he's very cool and charismatic. And I think importantly, he seems smart and he seems, uh, interested and curious and of course, bold and all those are good things. I am most encouraged by the combination of his, what I would call like, yeah, curiosity with the people who are, I'm hoping in his ear, right? And that is Brad Lander. That is Chiyose. That is Zellner Meyrie. Those might just be my pick for a triumvirate to run New York City housing and maybe America's housing, right? You could, it's a pretty good trio for what I might call Progressive Abundance. And, and that's who I'm staking my hopes on. Uh, and I'm encouraged. We don't know. It's a lot of speculation, but, and I'm not a New York City voter, but that's, that's what encourages me. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

30:45 Me too. I mean, uh, the people you mentioned are all great. Um, and hopefully they'll be very involved. Obviously Brad Lander is extremely involved right after the election. You know, he came to an abundance happy hour and, you know, said, you know, Zoran is the abundance candidate and, uh, there's no difference between progressivism and abundance. Um, you know, they go hand in hand. Um, and that's, that's something that I think that, uh, I feel, I feel very strongly that abundance is a separate access. It's not left, right, or center. Um, you know, there was that recent article, um, who wrote it, um, that was identifying very, all the various buckets of abundance. They had dark abundance, which was like the right wing abundance and red, red plenty.

31:34 And then a bunch of them in between, you know, Cascadian, you know, liberal abundance, um, moderate abundance. So I think that is, um, that's encouraging. And it might be, it might be like an only next thing you can go to China thing where you need, um, someone who calls themselves a socialist to really bring about a lot of these, a lot of these changes, which many of which are like very pro market changes that need to be done. So, I mean, I think, I think that's true. That's, I at least think it's enough to hope for, but I think that Nixon to China thing is not a bad analogy. Also those Brad Lander quotes, I mean, you know, his lips to God's ear, a man after my own heart, like that's perfect. Also, that means like, like he said it now he's accountable, right? Like, let's trust Brad Lander and hold him accountable if he's wrong. Cause he said that and that's cool. And now let's go do it. You know, like, that's awesome. Yeah. And then, so the, the second, the, the second housing proposal, um, would create an expedited land use, uh, review, uh, or either, uh, three proposals. Can that be true?

32:45 Is that true? We talked about one of them. Yeah. But the other two. Oh my God. All right. I got more time. Let's keep going. Yeah. Uh, the second one, it would allow, um, basically, so as we've discussed, the land use review process is very arduous, very long, very expensive, right? The, just the environmental part could take years because of this, you never see any small projects even attempted. It's only big, huge projects, right? So this second proposal says, okay, let's have just, uh, an expedited process. If you have a modest change, so what's modest, if you're building us 45 feet or less, or if you're only increasing the density, uh, by 30% or less, then you can go through this expedited process, which hopefully is cheaper and doesn't scare away or preclude, uh, smaller projects, uh, from trying to, uh, engage in it. Um, in addition, it also allows this, this expedited process for things like solar, solar projects, and then climate resilience, like flood buyouts, um, you know, building, uh, um, barriers, you know, by the water. Um, and then even better, uh, the CPC, the city planning commission can add categories going forward, right? So this, this allows, um, future reform, so we can say, you know, uh, in five ways we can say, we're going to add, you know, carbon capture, uh, to this, to this expedited process or modular housing or something like that, right? So it allows, it allows us, this, um, process to grow with, you know, technology and changes and how we, how we build our, um, how we construct our built environment. Um, go ahead.

34:53 I was going to say, it is just so darkly comic that New York City has to deal with the same shit that all the other cities, you know what I mean? Like, like every other city in America is scared of the Manhattan-ization of their city. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, most of the most iconic buildings in Manhattan would be illegal to build today in Manhattan. Like it is weird that in New York City, we still have to talk about the height limits and, uh, and setbacks and that kind of stuff. It is, it's funny in a sad way. Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, the zoning, I mean, this, the idea of zoning is pretty, I want to say insidious. I mean, every single parcel of land in New York City has the specified use or uses, a maximum height, um, an amount of setback it allows.

35:47 There's just a whole host of things where there's someone who's written something, written it down, and it's just how, how you can use that space. And if you want to deviate from that, you have to go through this very long, expensive process that if you have a single parcel, you're just not going to go through it all because it's too much trouble or too expensive. So that is a very obvious impediment to positive change, um, including positive changes that are very, very popular and completely uncontroversial. Like some of the things, like I said, a small increase in density for a building that's less than 45 feet or, you know, putting solar panels on the roof or building something for climate resiliency, you know, to prevent flooding. You know, these things should not have to go through the same process as, you know, building the Empire State Building, but currently they do.

36:43 Well, yes. I was just about to talk about the Empire State Building, which is kind of sticking out of your head like a little point, which is funny. Um, you know, when the Empire State Building was built, it was more than five times as tall as everything surrounding it. Like it blew up the neighborhood character. And I think we're glad it did. It almost, I think we could say created a new neighborhood character. One that is in fact, very popular that people will flood into New York to check out and pay tons of money to visit. Um, also because New York, uh, has many restrictions on building hotels. So the price of a hotel room is surging. Um, but, uh, you know, I think the Empire State Building is sort of example number one of like, actually, sometimes when you kind of blast through the old way things looked, people actually get like, it's actually very exciting and, uh, and, and creates new wonders for us to treasure and then later fuss about protecting like it. Yeah. Let's do things.

37:39 It can be nice. Yeah. So there's iconic buildings. I think like the Empire State Building, but also just regular buildings. I think something like 50% of the buildings in Manhattan could not be built under current zoning laws. Right. So it's your, you know, most people's office building they live in or, you know, or apartment building or, you know, where they go to hang out probably couldn't be built under current law, you know, um, which is, you know, it's like, Oh, that building is too tall for Manhattan or much less that room is too tiny for Manhattan. You should have seen where I lived in the East village. You should have seen it. Uh, just say nothing of like a little normals. And it, when you, when you're like a room that's too tiny, it must be at least this big. Guess what? Four people live there. That's what I did. Oh, you know, like what are you going to do? You got to build it, man. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, go, go for it.

38:36 And I think you have, I think there's a third one more. Yeah. The final, the final one, the final ballot question would make an appeals board. So this is trying to, um, mitigate the, the vitocracy that exists, you know, in this multi-step land use review process. So this proposal, so if the mayor or the city council, um, were to appear, were to veto, um, a proposal, um, it could go to a housing appeals board. This appeals board consists of the borough president of the affected borough, the speaker of the city council and the mayor. Um, so absent from this appeals board would be the local council member. Um, so the idea is that the borough president is thinking of, it's not just thinking of the local neighborhoods, thinking of the entire borough, right. But, but has a little more local, um, flavor or knowledge, you know, than, you know, the speaker or the mayor. Um, but then the speaker of city council also hopefully is, uh, not just thinking of this, you know, from the, from the standpoint of, uh, fiefdom as you call it. Um, and then the mayor who also, you know, hopefully has citywide, uh, the best interest of the city, um, in mind. Um, so there's that appeals board that could, that could go around, uh, the normal process, but that appeals board is limited in some, in some respects and actually five different ways.

40:07 So it could only review applications that would create affordable housing, right? So only affordable housing applications can, if it's a hundred percent market rate, this does not apply. Um, so, and it has to be about, about as affordable as the, what's called mandatory inclusionary housing, which is generally 20 to 30%, right? So you, you can't put one affordable unit in your project and then go to this appeals board, right? It has to be a meaningful amount. Um, and then, you know, the other limitation is two of the three have to agree, um, to make the change. And then they can only apply this to a language application that affects one borough. So you can't, a citywide zoning change, like city of yes, which is, it was a big zoning change. The city of yes could not have gone through this appeals board. Um, and then, uh, nothing automatically goes to this appeals board. So, so this is, so unlike the board of standards and appeals, the Supreme Court of line use, you can't, you can't skip over the universal line use process. You have to go through that process, get rejected, and then you can go to this appeals board. Um, and then finally, uh, there, this appeals board's power is way narrower than the, than the city council's, the city council's power or the, the city planning commission. Um, because it can only approve or disapprove a new, uh, you know, a land use action. It can't create new laws.

41:42 It can't write, it can't change the zoning law. Like I can't, I can't propose to eliminate, uh, height restrictions in the Upper West Side and then take that to this board of appeals, right? That would have to go through the normal lawmaking process. Um, so yeah, so that, so, so this proposal question three would create this narrow, um, affordable only appeals board consisting of council speaker, borough president, um, and the mayor, uh, to hopefully, um, speed through or not speed through, to hopefully approve certain projects that can't get through the normal land use review process because of member deference, uh, or other, other impediments. That was good, man. You had a lot of specific detail to get through and you bore with me taking an hour for the first one. Cause I mean, member deference is some psycho shit. Um, no, this, I mean, it sounds like, okay, first I'm going to ask you what we can do to support these in a second, but first, like, what do you think the impact will be? If all these, if it gets through the board of elections, little stunt and the voters pass it, like quantify this, help me feel out. You've given me the specifics of the laws. What do you think the actual like dollar's donut impact on New York city will be?

43:03 And how soon? Yeah, I think this in a way it would, is as meaningful as city of yes. Um, well, so city of yes was very ambitious. You know, I give, uh, you know, the mayor a lot of credit for the original ambition of the plan. Um, but what happened was that in the process of getting it approved, it was, it got watered down by a lot of, you know, a lot of people who ended up voting for it, you know, they said, Oh, we, so it was, for instance, it was supposed to go to parking minimums across the city. Um, by the time it got passed, it was the parking minimums were eliminated in Manhattan, but remain in some of the lower density areas like Northern Bronx, you know, Eastern Queens, and so on and so forth. So as a result of all that city of yes is only expected to create 80,000 units of new housing, um, over the next 10 years, which is good, but you know, we need way more than that.

44:03 Um, there's another plan called the Manhattan plan, which is supposed to create a hundred thousand units, just in Manhattan over the same period. Now that is just a plan. Yeah. So that was rolled out by mayor Adams in January. Um, it's currently under, um, formulation and, um, it's in the right now, it's in the public review process. So anyone, you, me, community boards, city council members, corporations, nonprofits can propose changes. So this is, these are zoning changes, changes to rules sites on which to build property, any suggestion for building housing in Manhattan. Um, and then the, the, uh, the mayor's office will compile these and release a plan in December.

44:52 Um, now if these don't pass, it'll be very, very hard to build a hundred thousand new units in Manhattan in the next 10 years. If these pass, I think it's, I think it's doable.

45:06 So that's, that's one way I'd, that's one way I'd quantify it. So another way I'd quantify it is I would say with this plus city of yes, you know, the number of 80,000 units over 10 years, you know, now is well into the, you know, six digits, six figure, you know, 200,000 or more units.

45:24 Um, so, yeah. Eric Adams, man, imagine getting a guy who passes city of yes and is hilarious and we can't wait for the next one, but the monkey's paw curls. Yeah. Yeah. He probably supported the garden. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, Nick, Nixon, uh, created the EPA and, you know, clean, you know, clean air acts, clean water acts, but then had to be impeached, you know, rightfully so. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good analogy. Nixon's come up a few times on this episode and I usually talk about him in the context of nuclear power, man. Uh, that's very funny. Nixon's come up a lot more on radio abundance than I would have ever guessed. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Tabita, all right, we've got, you've got listeners in New York, uh, viewers now we're on video. Yeah. Viewers in New York, viewers outside of New York, you've got sort of two hurdles. One is whatever's going on with the board of elections right now. And then you've got the actual election.

46:17 So I guess the four categories, sorry to overcomplicate everything, but like, how can we help? What can people do? Those are two battles, two demographics to answer this however you want, but like ask for help from people that are watching this right now. What can people do?

46:33 Uh, well, there is a hearing tomorrow, uh, Tuesday. Well, you never know, but tell us why am I talking? Um, uh, the best way is just like you would do to support a candidate is talk to your neighbors, talk to your friends, post on social media about why you support these proposals. Um, and, uh, you know, of course, go out and vote, make sure that you're registered to vote, make sure everyone, you know, votes. Um, but also implore any influencers, you know, whether that's your, you know, council person or just your friend who has a lot of followers also support these proposals and, uh, you know, give your reasons why you think they should be passed because you want more housing to be built and you want rents to go down, um, because you want to maintain the dynamism of the city that allowed you and others to move here, you know, you know, without being rich and live and experience all the New York has to offer. Um, you don't, you know, because you don't want your favorite businesses to have to close because they can't afford rent. Um, because you don't want your friends not to be able to visit you because they can't afford to, you know, spend a weekend here. Um, whatever your reason is, I would just, you know, be vocal about that and then, um, you know, participate, you know, join a community board, um, things like that.

47:57 Yeah. I mean, I think I want to double stamp this point. And it came up in a conversation I had earlier today with a member of Congress about fascism, which I'm excited to share with the world. But like this actual idea, you said it's, it's the most tried and true thing of politics ever, right? Which is just talk to people and just tell them, but I actually think this is huge in a couple of the areas most important to the show. And in this case, it's because nimbyism, I think is the easy default position, which is what 50 years of not really being questioned will do for you. Right. And, uh, and it's so much, we all want to pay less in rent and it's so much easier to conceptualize the danger of a giant tower than the danger of scarcity. That's much less vivid in that you can't actually picture scarcity. It's like an anti-visual. Um, so the, the idea of having those sort of easy defaults that you might get from social media or like your family or whoever, and having like a friend and a person you like and a person you trust say, no, actually we need to build housing.

48:55 Like, no, actually we need to build tall housing. Like, no, actually we need to build dense housing. Like that will, is the thing. And maybe the only thing that will make your rent go down. People do actually need to hear that not from an article, not from Ezra Klein, not from Twitter, not from members of Congress. They need to hear it from you. They need to hear it from their friends and people they like, and they need to hear that building is good and, and that they should care about this. And, oh, by the way, vote for these things in, uh, in November and raise a lot of hell about them until then. I think it is the most important point in our politics and with the in shitification of the world and social media and the bots and AI, it's never been more important to just pick up the damn phone and call your friends to just text your friends using your own thumbs and not some political campaigns, auto dialer. And to just say, when you are hanging out with people grabbing beers or let's be real, nobody drinks anymore, smoking a joint or whatever it is people do now, like just to say, this is what we got to do. Uh, that matters. And, uh, not, you know, all the influences in the world cannot affect your friends as much as hearing it from you.

50:04 And that is, is the most important thing you can do. And so I want to thank you to beat it for calling that out. No problem. No problem. Uh, what should I have asked you today that I didn't?

50:15 Um, about this daybreaking, sorry, daylighting bill, that's, um, so what daylighting is, is it's removing, uh, the eight parking spots closest to the intersection and the intersection, um, and experience and research has found that this, um, greatly reduces pedestrian deaths. Um, for example, uh, in 2024, 92% of pedestrian deaths in New York City were at intersections that were not daylighted. Um, very famously, Hoboken enacted daylighting in 2017. And this had zero pedestrian traffic deaths since. So there is a bill before the city council to pass daylight. So actually daylighting is a state law, but right now New York City is exempt from it. So this bill would just bring us into alignment with the existing state law. Um, opponents don't like that it would get rid of 300,000 parking spaces, but the good thing is we still will have 2.7 million more street parking space, not including garages or people's driveways, but just the public spaces in which people are allowed to store their privately owned vehicle. There's the only 2.7 million of those left. Um, also there was a department transportation report on this, which said that, uh, yes, the lighting would save many lives, but it would also cost, but the lighting works best if you have a hard, um, a hard obstacle in that parking space, not just open space and putting those in their claiming would cost $3 billion or about 10,000 per intersection. Now that is, um, more than it would cost because you don't have to put like a cement block there. You can just put, for instance, a city bike stand also works or a dining shed, um, also works. So it could cost way less than $3 billion, or you could make money from it. You could sell advertising. There's, you could have public private partnerships. You could, you could use that space for a lot of, a lot of ways that could make it, you know, physically neutral. Um, but also there's also just the cost of car accidents and loss of life, you know, which they're not taking into account. That's worth something. Um, I would say, um, I would say too. Yeah. So where, where this currently is, is that, uh, the bill has 26 co-sponsors. That's important because there are 51 people in the city councils. That's already a majority. Um, they're, they're hoping to get 34 people on board, um, in case, uh, the mayor, um, vetoes it. And as you know, he's been vetoing a lot of bills lately.

53:17 Sorry, quick question. I thought this was a state thing, but this is, uh, uh, daylighting is a current state law. Oh, it's current. And it's a question of whether to whether New York city is currently exempt from that state law, take away the exemption and make New York city, um, comply with the state law. Um, so that is before the city council, least to pass city council, be signed by the mayor and city law. Um, so it's currently, uh, in committee, uh, Julie Menon city council person from district one on the east side is the head of the committee that needs to bring this to a vote. Um, interestingly, she is throwing her hat in the ring for city council speaker. Um, so, you know, if you think, uh, that she should bring this to a vote, I would reach out to Julie Menon and say, Hey, I like daylighting. Um, let's, let's vote on it.

54:16 Um, that's what I recommend. Nice. You know what, you're talking about the cost of it, right? I have seen this done in a gorilla way, right? Like you just need a big ass, like you can actually order a big ass rock and put it in the parking space and then somebody has to move it. I mean, don't tell people that definitely tell people that, um, but no, and then you made like, look, we spent a lot of time on this show talking about things we like better than parking spaces, like parks or apartments, but you know, to be, did you know what I like better than parking spaces? People's lives. Um, I don't, I feel like $10,000 in intersection.

54:50 Yeah. Even then I think eight parking spaces versus light. I think like, I think we can actually just put that on the scales, man. Uh, and it's, I get it. We don't know whose life it's going to save. Could be yours. Yeah. There's like something like 250 traffic deaths a year in, in New York city. Yeah. And as you mentioned, look, I was talking to mayor Steven Fulop over the, over the bridge tunnel over in Jersey city. Right. And, uh, look when they did year zero, they had years with zero, as you said, right. Like it actually can be done. Like that's a hell of a lot of lives to save like that. You're going to be like, you know, you want that on your conscience, right? Yeah. And studies have shown in Jersey city, other places that it was, it was the daylight that made a difference. I mean, it's a physical thing. Like you literally can't see someone crossing the street if there was a car there. And then if you move the car, then you can see that person.

55:45 And most people are not going to purposely drive into another human being and kill them. So they tend to break 40 miles per hour. Right. It's like throwing them off a giant cliff. Genuinely. Like you're like, you know, like that's, and you have, and if you get like, that sucks if you're the one hit, but if you hit them, like, yeah, that's, it's just on your permanent record, man. That's in your heart forever. Like let's, let's get some boulders. Um, to be tough, this has been a lot of fun. Now, I think we talked about how people can help by having friends and talking to them. Um, I also bet it would help and help make friends for people to join the New York city, new liberals. So can you take a quick second, give us the pitch, but most importantly, tell us how people can join and where to find you. Um, we are at center for new liberalism.org. Um, you can find our chapter there and you can join.

56:35 We have events pretty much every month. Now we're going to have a couple of events before the election. We have, uh, happy hours. We have speakers. Um, there is, so the center for new liberalism is a global, a global organization, uh, started in New York city by Jeremiah Johnson and Colin Mortimer. Um, but now we have chapters in, you know, Zimbabwe, Johannesburg, Taiwan. So all over the US. So you can join. We have ones in New Jersey, Connecticut. Um, so you can join your local chapter and go to events. There's also a podcast. Um, we have a annual conference that's coming up in October that you can join. And one really cool thing is you can apply for a scholarship to join the conference. They'll, they'll apply you there and put you up. Um, so that's a good way to come meet people.

57:26 We're going to have a bunch of great speakers. Um, Francis Fukuyama. I'm really excited. Um, I hear he's going to tell us that history is back on.

57:39 What are the dates again? Give us the dates. Do you have it on my calendar? I can figure it out. Uh, October, October 10th. I don't think that's right. Hold on. Stay with me. Um, uh, is it on my calendar? No, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, boom. It's around the 20th. It's like around October 20th, 20th, 21st, something like that. Close enough for government work. All right. Um, do they really have to go? It's a lot of words. They really have to go to centerfornewliberalism.com to sign up. Uh, that's fine. We'll just say it a couple of times. Centerfornewliberalism.com. And you can figure out how to join the city chapter. Our, our chat, if you, if you're in New York city, it's just nycnewliberals.org. That's what we're looking for. NYC new liberals. New, not neo, new, nycnewliberals.org.

58:31 That's correct. Excellent. By the way, I knew you guys were international, but, uh, that's even bigger scope than I thought. I have always heard that Zimbabweans were neoliberal shills, so I get it, but it's still pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I've, uh, I've made a lot of friends all over the world for this organization. That's so cool. One of the great things about it. Yeah. People should definitely join then, and they'll have friends to hang out with in different places, and, you know, capture, and, uh, friends in New York City to campaign with.

58:59 Yeah. Yeah. Um, amazing. This has been such a fun chat. Uh, we've been here like an hour. It's been great fun. Uh, Tabitha Kanene, political director for the New York City New Liberals, part of the Center for New Liberalism, who can be found at nycnewliberals.org. Uh, you in the audience have just heard all about these three very important, uh, housing ballot issues in New York. Uh, please make sure if you are in New York to vote for them. If you are not in New York, to tell New Yorkers to vote for them. Uh, let's get rid of this whole member deference, municipal feudal fiefdom weird thing. Let's get rid of it. Um, and, and Tabitha, thanks not just for coming on Radio Abundance to talk about this, but thanks for suggesting it. Thank you for reaching out and being like, dude, people got to hear about this. Let's get this going. Uh, because I really appreciate it and have had such a blast hanging out with you today.

59:47 No problem. No problem. All right. Thank you, Tabitha, and thank you to everybody who has been watching this. You have been watching Radio Abundance. I am Steve Boyle. I am your host and executive director of YIMBY Democrats for America. If you like this stuff and want to get involved or, like, meet people or go to parties or campaign or build houses, look, we're here to build America, defeat fascism, uh, and unleash the era of Progressive Abundance, uh, and we're going to need your help. Uh, and I'm also sick of my own voice, so, like, join and, you know, you can come on the podcast. It's totally possible. Um, uh, so thank you everybody at home for watching. Thank you, uh, to Vita Kanene for telling us what's up, and we will see you all next time. Thank you.