04/02/2024
Dear All,
Open NY is a lobby, a paid one, with staff, and huge funding. They support the destruction of zoning and massive deregulation of the housing market - they want crazy high towers everywhere. They believe fanatically in "trickle-down" housing theory. Their members have bamboozled their way onto Community Board 5. There is protest happening about this, which is a good thing and I have cut and pasted a recent Crain's article below.
Of course, this is horrible. Shame on the city for letting this happen. But, as Humanscale NYC has long noted and protested before Charter Review Commissions, it is perfectly legal to appoint professional lobbyists to community boards! In fact, Manhattan Community boards are filled with lobbyists (some 20 by my count a couple of years back), both professional ones and informal ones who are not paid, but are there nonetheless to serve an extremely tightly defined set of interests. It is, as one Councilmember noted, "a sewer" of special interests manipulating the work of Community Boards.
If you want this to change, you must tell your City Council member to change the law to forbid lobbyists of any kind, (formal , paid, or not) from serving on community boards except in a non-voting, non-managerial capacity. We need reform...NOW.
Best,
Lynn Ellsworth
FROM CRAIN's today:
"Community Board 5 has summoned its members to an emergency meeting Wednesday evening, two weeks after its surprise takeover by a tech-backed group that’s fed up with what it sees as NIMBY resistance to new housing development.
CB5, which represents Midtown neighborhoods, is the most powerful of the city’s many community boards and has a seat at the table when policymakers tackle big matters, such as the future of Penn Station or East Midtown rezoning. On March 14, CB5 members belonging to the nonprofit Open New York ignited a boardroom battle that ended with one of the group’s employees winning the chairman’s gavel. Open New York, backed in part by a Facebook co-founder, lobbies for more housing development and “to reduce the harms caused by excessively restrictive local land use regulations,” according to its website.
Tech-backed group plans big New York lobbying push for more housing
Manhattan's Community Board 5 leadership steps aside after boardroom brawl
How labor unions became New York's housing power brokers
Some CB5 members felt Open New York members weren’t transparent about their affiliation to the group, which recently launched a political action arm to support lawmakers who support housing development. At least a third of CB5’s nearly 40 members signed a petition demanding Wednesday night’s emergency meeting, whose agenda includes discussions on “ethical concerns,” “culture of open communication,” and “enhancing board governance.”
The meeting will also include a statement from CB5 Chairman Samir Lavingia, who is Open New York’s campaign coordinator. No new business will be taken up, according to CB5’s website, but members of the public will be allowed to speak.
Lavingia declined to comment.
CB5 member Charles Nye told Crain’s he signed the petition because he’s upset the board is led by an Open New York employee. He agrees more apartments are needed, but questions Open New York’s support for the sort of subsidized housing in which he lives. Nye added that, due to technical problems, it was difficult for board members attending last month’s meeting remotely to follow the proceedings and some didn’t understand they were voting to elect Lavingia chairman.
“I’m unhappy there are lobbyists on the board,” said Nye, who attended last month’s meeting in person and plans to attend Wednesday wearing a t-shirt that reads: “Resist manipulation: Reject Open New York lies.”
