 So why don't we Open up to some questions because you all heard the the speech we just put in place I'm hoping this time unlike our mental health speech That you actually heard me and not just interpreted so we'll open our team is here and You could ask any questions you want from me or the team about our gift stuff bill report governmental entities and What have you done so far to kind of secure those There's a combination there things that as in any Holistic full government approach to dealing with a major crises There's a combination of reflection on what we could do better and what we want to do in change And there's a combination of what our partners can do on the federal as we deal with Vouchers on the state as we look at incentives to build so there's a combination this is a full government approach and We're gonna look at our house first We're gonna look at our house first on what we must improve and do but at the same time of There needs to be a partnership in doing that and thanks for handing me this you know this stack of papers here Think about this for a moment. This is what it takes to get it done People are reading through 50,000 pieces of paper To actually get housing built in our city. It's antiquated is Counterproductive and we have to face it head-on and that is why we are putting this Report together and calling on the full government report response. So it's a combination that we all have to be a part of this More expensive We hear them and you know as I said the great philosopher of our time the rent is too damn high And it's not only high for low-income New Yorkers is high for middle-income New Yorkers It's high for the full-time employee at McDonald's where He and his wife are working full-time and now they are not eligible for low-income is high for them And so it is imperative with our call of a full government approach to have this moonshot moment of 500,000 homes it is low middle and market rate and the goal is not to Displace and I think reports are starting to show that development does not have to be displacement It's not about removing long-term Residents from their communities but allowing them to be part of the development of their communities not only in housing building the housing Making sure that they're part of as communities evolve. And so we must ensure that we must put safeguards in place to make sure that people are not displaced and There's roles that the district attorneys can even play for those who try to illegally Evict or damage property to get tenants out and that is what a full government approach is And so I say to them we're going to keep the safeguards to make sure they can stay safely in their communities It seems like a cornerstone of this plan is to streamline the input process the community input process Do you see it has a barrier that there is too much input on a lot of projects now? No, there's nothing is planned as streams of streamlines the community input process. That's very important What it is saying that? Pre-process Where it's just it can take up to two years We have a pre-processed before the process and throughout the years We continue to add on new bureaucracy and new layers until we started out with probably with one ream of paper You're going to be in the photos We started out with one ream of paper now we have this I mean this has to be unacceptable to everyone So we have to get rid of this using technology You do use it innovative ways to cut this down so we could go from the ideal To the actual ideal environment of someone finding housing, but we're not taking away the community input process Are essentially fill vacancies that already exist in a lot of these agencies. We've talked about the financial issues the city's facing We've talked about the staffing issues. How do you reconcile those with this very personnel heavy approach here? You know and that is something that has been Consuming a lot of my time for the last two months One I believe that we have to have outside eyes look at how we function as a city and All of these processes you can't have money Ideas but the ideas are getting caught in the bottlenecking of the system And it's no excuse to me that we don't have enough manpower. That is not an excuse The new norm is of that they're going to be Challenges on staffing up even Brad did his report of that we have an eight percent vacancy rate of In the city he missed that he has a 14% vacancy rate in the controller's office That was not included in his analysis But that was with all of his work for homes all of his remote work all of his modifications He still has a 14% vacancy rate There's a challenge and so what I'm saying to my leaders that are behind me We cannot have a reason for not reaching these goals Because of the existing circumstances that not only post-covid created, but just a new norm. We have a national Worker workers shortage problem every company I speak with no matter where I go across the country They're saying the same thing So now it's up to us to adapt to this norm and come up with innovative ways of getting these projects through not been meeting with companies corporations and other individuals Who are saying? we are using antiquated methods on Producing a better product and I truly believe that the mere fact that we don't have competition as a corporation Has that there's no real incentive to modify government to produce a better product and create a better customer Government customer experience and we're focusing on doing that You can probably save a lot of paper My second question is List a number of 50,000 apart housing units I'm just curious as to how that number came to be Because I don't know the background of how that was estimated that when this is sort of moved away When these regulations are lifted or what and change that that's the number we'll get to I'm sorry you said you said 50,000 or 500 It's 50, what's up? What's up? What's what's what's what I'm sorry, which one you be talking? So as the mayor said we're trying to go from a system that is based on paperwork To and one that's based on process to one that's based on Progress and so if we enact all of 111 reforms We cut the time in half for a project to get from environmental review to actually permitted With people in them and we're saving about two billion dollars What that unlocks if we can build as fast as we want to through this plan are 50,000 additional new homes over the course of the next decade So those are 50,000 homes that we otherwise would create after a decade because our process is so slow and Costly and frankly a little cop to ask and that's what we're trying to change The regulations unlocks the money that will then fund 50,000 additional the regulations a lot of these projects are built of course by Private developers not for profit developers MWB ease it would otherwise take them If it takes them six years to get a project from start to finish our goal here is to cut that in half And so that means those units come online for New Yorkers 50% faster and that's an additional 50,000 within the ten-year period of new homes that we've added to our housing supply Which one was that we Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. So 500,000 it is a moonshot I believe we can get there as the mayor said we added 800,000 people to the city in like the last decade only 200,000 new homes So how can we not just recover from this pandemic but prosper into the future and meet both population Economic growth if we don't at least double that so the doubling of that The 500,000 is the moonshot that we are putting out there and it is truly a call to action and to get there We need to build faster, which is the blast report. We need to build everywhere all of the work on land use and zoning and We need to build together Which is why we're calling on our federal and state partners to join us and city council, of course to join us in this effort And you and you know Kate You know and I say to the team all the time I don't know if he said it or if it's attributed to him Henry Ford He said if I would ask people they would have told me how to build faster horses and he was thinking about a car We have too many fast horse thinkers We would have not have known that You know, we would have had this thing called zoom if it wasn't for the pandemic We would have not have known you don't know your full potential until you're faced with real challenges and we cannot say that because of You know the large amount that of you know was too hard to do so that's just not how this administration operates We we have to push ourselves. Here's the challenge now Let's become creative in reaching the challenge. That is just how we operate We operate with give us the challenge and we're going to push ourselves to get to the challenge We need 500,000 units of we need housing, you know We we have all these New Yorkers that have come to this city and then when enjoyed his city These are the numbers so we have to reach the numbers. We can't just ignore it The problem is not going to go away just because it's hard That's just not how this administration operates. We want the hard task Yes Or a period of slower growth Are you do you see there if there's a way that the state legislature can revive Do you need it? Well, in part of the the report that we have here Points out that we need the legislative body to look at incentives To repair Existing properties in housing and to incentivize building more houses that is part of the component It goes back to Mike's Michael's comment of that. This has to be a full government approach So we need to find ways whatever the hurdles were with 421 a 421 w Whatever those hurdles were let's find ways to get over them so we can incentivize Private industries building and even our faith-based leaders that we are partnering with to build as well No, not at all particularly with the smaller units, you know, we have to constantly ask ourselves Why are we doing something? We know the smaller? Development units are not impacting the environment. Are we just doing it because it feels good and it's a good sound bite No, we get to stop just doing things because it sounds good or feel good It doesn't have a major impact and that is what we're focusing on when it comes down to those environmental issues Yes And we and we laid out very specifically, you know, when you read the report you're gonna see some Specific items that we laid out on what we need both from the council or from Albany and what we have to do here It's not only what the federal government Albany and the city council, but we have to do a reflection on ourselves We have to say what can we do better, you know, and in getting this done And that's why we we put in a challenge here So it's a combination and it's all laid out here in the report to say specifically what we need from each one of them The ghost You say the ghost apartments help me understand Well, I would need to drill in to find out exactly what they are and if they are illegal Everything a combination from the Department of Buildings to our human rights. We will focus on any illegal Converges that any illegal housing in any way people are preventing people from getting Deeper Well, you know, there's there is an interesting dynamic that is happening around Employment and jobs as you stated we focus on on jobs creation We are moving and we were moving in the right direction and we got to continue to do so in every day new industries are opening Our startups are growing here in the city of the more we increase our tourism potential It's going to open up a major job employee employee Market we are in a very unique place around employees being number one in workforce and number two of doing remote Working we're going to continue to do the things that have worked for us and continue to grow our employment pool in the city Is this how In concept But you know, I'm always concerned about public safety I want to be clear that the bill reach the exact desire results. No one should be denied Housing based on their records, but I want to make sure residents in Apartments in buildings and rentals in the small units that they get to protection that they deserve I am focused on I'm a big supporter of the Having a look back period of to allow a person to clean their record There's some bills in Albany that's doing that now, but I am just not a blanket support of it I want to make sure that particularly those who participated in violent crimes We need to respect the safety of people who live in buildings and sometimes we ignore that and I don't believe that Traction wanted to see what you think of that idea of reparations of looking back I support it. I think it's long overdue of You know there I think we need to zero in on some of those corporations and companies of That the foundation of their wealth came from slavery and I commend those lawmakers in Albany that are Looking at this because I believe is long overdue is something that I supported of for many years So I will say around about 30 years I support it that we need to look at this country was built on free labor and We are who we are because of that free labor and that free labor destroyed the foundation of African-Americans that worked on plantations made cotton king of Tobacco industry many of the banking industries a lot of these industries are where they are because of it and government has an Obligation to deal with that and I'm 100% support of what they're doing Let's peel that back the latter part of your question. No not rethinking the second part The first first comment. I'm criticized all the time part of the game but I turn out to be right many times and We were pointing out the affordable units many of the Advocates professionals and people who analyze affordable houses stated when the big problems that we were making is counting units Not ensuring the affordability of it and actually people inside the units. We said we're not doing that Our success is not going to be based on the number of units We had but how many people we place inside and how affordable it is the call today of that a 500,000 moonshot is saying Not only affordable not only middle income, but even market. We need more housing We don't have enough housing to fit the population that we have Well, there's a predetermined amount of time for community boards for community input for borough president That's a solid amount of time that it must go through the process that Pre-conditioning which is an open window is really problematic And so we want to put out a very loud and clear full government approach to this by telling communities as we indicated in the speech Today of that we can no longer have the thought process not on my block not in my neighborhood not in my community We have to say we must house all our neighbors neighbors And that must be the full approach and those communities who have historically stated They don't want any building in their community We have used different methods to keep people out. We can't do that anymore Yes Are you guys going to be asking them, you know, how to better mitigate the situation at your bedside pad? All over the city all over the city. I think that I'm not sure what you live at, but I'm trust me you got rats You know, don't think don't think for one moment that you are excluded, you know Up the east side up the west side, you know rats are everywhere. I hate rats You know, I'm scared of them, you know And when I see one I think about it all day and so I am fixated on killing rats, you know And so from on my block Whenever I you know go over to visit the brownstone You know, I see one scurrying down the block, you know, it's a problem, you know I don't know who in here if that's if you not scared of rats You are you are really you're my heroes, then you can be the rats are, you know So yes on Lafayette Avenue on Franklin Avenue, wherever they're rats We want the rats are to go and you know, what's lost is that? Let me tell you how scared I am of rats. I spent seven thousand dollars to get rid of rats That's a serious piece of paper, but the guy black man. He said, I know you scared of rats You know so but seriously, it's a problem, you know, I don't want rodents running around the city Because we went I went up and down the block I helped other places some some tennis were not cooperating and you know He came in did a real analysis and he did a good job, you know But not every New Yorker can pay that dollar amount because they made me may not be as frightened as I am I'm terrified of rats Well, I like birthday parties, you know, you know, I like birthday parties, you know You get a chance to socialize. There was some good group of people in there. I was invited So I popped in I think we did six or seven events that night and I was one of the events and I stopped in wish them a happy birthday And then I bounced kept it moving I Mean I've been reading some of the stories of I don't think I know a better advocate fight on behalf of women Then tish James tish James is you know a real voice for women in leadership And I think she's extremely capable of Investigating and of my understanding of she had an outside entity that investigated and Mr. Report was released She turned it over, but I think tiff is a real tish is a real advocate on behalf of Is there a place for the people Yes, yes, yes the the no one that has a mental health Illness is being turned away from our hospitals or being turned away when we bring them if they are in a place that they are in Danger to themselves or others because they can't reach their basic needs and we're gonna continue to expand and this is again This is one of the moments. We know the challenge. We know how big this challenge is So people who criticize what we're doing then they're saying they want to support the status quo The status quo is leaving people on the street that cannot take care of their basic needs and they're in danger to themselves I don't support that and we have to meet the challenge that's in front of us and I'm ready to do it I want these tough challenges Okay We don't need a new department of we just need someone that hates rats as much as I do to take this job and go out and kill these rats