HOUSING OUR NEIGHBORS:
Land Use for the People

There is an affordable housing crisis in our City, which disproportionately impacts communities of color. The impacts of this crisis are magnified within District 39, particularly in Gowanus, a neighborhood that has faced rapid gentrification and development over the past few years. Affordable, safe, and accessible housing is a human right, and communities, not real estate developers, should be prioritized in all neighborhood planning. The Gowanus Rezoning process has excluded NYCHA residents, low-income tenants, immigrant-owned businesses, and Black and Brown families facing displacement. Other neighborhoods within the district, especially immigrant neighborhoods like Kensington, also need to be protected from development that doesn’t meet the needs of current residents.

As a former public housing and tenant organizer, Shahana centers the need for safe and livable housing for all New Yorkers. Her organizing with CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, where she helped to create a Bangladeshi and broader Asian tenants’ association at Queensbridge Houses, taught Shahana the importance of language accessibility when providing affordable homes for tenants. Organizing with tenant activists has provided the foundation for how she will approach the affordable housing crisis in the City. This crisis can only be resolved by investing in Community Land Trusts (CLTs) - a housing structure that is social, decommodified, and centers true democratic resident control.

Our city’s land use and planning process must center local communities, not for-profit developers. Within the last 10 years, Gowanus and other surrounding neighborhoods have seen a 22% decrease in affordable housing, a rapid decrease in Black and brown residents, a $1,000 increase in median rent, an increase in median home sale prices, and rapid gaps between the lowest and highest income areas. This is due to a failure to prioritize low- income residents in NYCHA and rent-stabilized housing during the Fourth Avenue rezoning. NYCHA is the most affordable housing in New York City, and though there is no public housing in District 39, Shahana will be accountable to NYCHA residents because the impacts of poor land use decisions have long-term consequences to these New Yorkers. Assuming that District 39 still maintains the right to member deference over any land use issues that impact the Gowanus Houses, Wyckoff Gardens, and Warren Street Houses, Shahana will work with her colleagues in District 33 to ensure that the voices and needs of NYCHA residents are heard - and will oppose any rezoning that does not fully fund infrastructural improvements to NYCHA.

It is important to reinvest back into communities, particularly Black and Brown, low income, and immigrant communities, that are most impacted by gentrification and displacement. Now is the time for environmental justice that recognizes the long legacy of pollution, redlining and public policy that has burdened certain populations and protected others in District 39. This justice can take the form of thoughtful civic engagement in planning processes, prioritizing and fully funding NYCHA housing, and allocating community-based funds to efforts that explain the capacity of communities to shape just solutions for themselves. When planning new affordable housing projects or preserving existing ones, it is crucial to use an environmental justice lens to ensure that folks who rely on such housing are able to have safe and sound homes, free of environmental hazards or dangers. This is the case in Gowanus where the NYCHA developments, Gowanus Houses, Wyckoff Gardens, and Warren Street Houses (all adjacent to the Superfund site), are very vulnerable to flooding, sewage overflows, and system breakdowns that endanger the habitability of these buildings.

+ Rethink Gowanus rezoning to prioritize long standing community

In Gowanus, between 2007 and 2014, there was a 22% decrease in rent stabilized housing. Three NYCHA sites (Gowanus Houses, Wyckoff Gardens, and Warren Street Houses) have seen their continued viabilities as low-income housing threatened due to natural disasters and public policy choices that continue to divest public funding from these communities in favor of private partnerships.

A key planning outcome for Gowanus should be an increase in affordable and public housing in the district, while ensuring that existing housing is preserved and protected from environmental hazards. Public housing in Gowanus is currently among the most vulnerable to flooding, natural disasters, and climate change.

While the current rezoning plan seeks to increase diversity and affordable housing in the district, rezonings in Downtown Brooklyn and LIC have taught us that anti-gentrification and displacement mitigation plans do not follow through on their promises particularly when there are not racial impact assessments. While special use districts, like historical districts, routinely increase the property values and rent for homes inside of the districts, an environmental justice special use district prioritizes environmental concerns and social concerns, avoiding rent hikes by design. Looking to the Minneapolis City Council’s implementation of Green Zones that prioritize both public health impacts of environmental justice and investment in community development, we see potential in rezoning processes that incorporate more stringent, racially conscious, community driven criteria. In order to determine what is best for the Gowanus community, Shahana will be working closely with the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice and help fund the coalition's work as Council Member.

Shahana is a lupus survivor, a disease which developed because of environmental degradation and poor public infrastructure: cramped homes and public spaces with high pollution, more cars, and less open space -- factors that increase the risk of chronic illness and inflammation for low income, immigrant, and/or BIPOC folks. Shahana knows first-hand the public health impacts of poor public infrastructure, and opposes the rezoning in its current form because (1) it does not fully fund NYCHA infrastructural improvements, (2) does not thoroughly incorporate community feedback, (3) does not create enough affordable housing, and (4) better mitigation for negative environmental impacts of rezoning.

As Council Member, Shahana will...

  • Fight for full funding for the public housing adjacent to our district: Wyckoff Houses, Gowanus Houses, and Warren Street Houses

  • Require that impact assessments that determine the potential harms and benefits of a proposed rezoning prioritize the economic, environmental, public health, and racial impacts of rezoning, particularly on those in public housing

  • Ensure that NYCHA residents shape the rezoning process through encouraging additional representation of public housing residents in Community Board 6 and thoughtful engagement between residents and the Department of City Planning

  • Create a democratically elected council of NYCHA residents to shape policy.
  • Invest in NYCHA’s community and recreational spaces, and hold oversight hearings on accessible open spaces in NYCHA
  • Work to change land use in the District to include light manufacturing and industrial uses, within the scope of the rezoning. These land use changes would both protect Gowanus’s history as an industrial neighborhood and would create more jobs in the neighborhood
  • Ensure jobs created as a part of the rezoning or jobs tied to any new developments are prioritized for members of the local community through the development of a job center with remote sites around the rezoning district, including in NYCHA community centers
  • Prioritize the creation and investment of Community Land Trusts as part of the rezoning while demanding that any affordable housing built is permanently affordable for ELLA households: extremely low affordability households

  • Demand full participation of our communities in the planning and policymaking process for the Gowanus Rezoning and all future rezonings

    • Host community planning meetings to draft Community Impact Statements that center community members’ perceived impacts of rezoning
    • Expand the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group
    • Include NYCHA in the environmental impact assessment of the Gowanus Rezoning and all future rezonings. NYCHA is especially vulnerable to flooding, and proposed developments must decrease the risk of flooding.
    • Champion a racial equity impact assessment to assess the project impacts to ensure that Brown and Black families are not displaced, and neighborhood character prioritizes the character of immigrant neighborhoods
    • Take a lens of immigrant justice (laundromats, bodegas) when analyzing which businesses get displaced
    • Extend ULURP timeline, particularly for large scale community projects/projects that are expected to have significant impact on the community to allow for more community engagement and involvement in the planning process while actively exploring alternatives to ULURP that empower community members, not real estate developers
    • Provide outreach material in top city languages
    • Make GIS and mapping data available to the public and local organizations to make key decisions

  • Make community boards more inclusive - by appointing immigrant community members, providing childcare, translation materials, transportation vouchers, meals

  • Create zoning density and height limits that work for Gowanus like capping building heights at a maximum to prevent the development of skyscraper luxury condominiums
  • Prohibit or require special permits for large commercial uses to prevent “big-box” businesses from coming into the neighborhood
  • Incorporate waterfront regulations that preserve access to light, air, and open space for the neighborhood
  • Account for changing school density to accommodate the growing population of students within the district. Enrollment in District 15 increased by 13% between 2013 and 2017 compared to 4% citywide

+ Supporting community land trusts to increase Black and brown home ownership

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) cede land ownership to nonprofit organizations and land cooperatives that stabilize rent with the goal of home ownership for Black and Brown, low income families. Community Land Trusts are driven by community organizing, but can and should be monetarily supported by the City Council. CLTs are cheaper for initial property buy-ins, use economies of scale to keep utility prices lower, and are a successful means of inclusionary zoning. During the great recession, CLT homes were 10 times less likely to go into foreclosure than other homes. Community organizing has been a crucial part of the CLT process; however, more funding and support from the Council is needed to ensure that more CLT homes are created, therefore providing more affordable housing options in the district.

As City Council Member, Shahana will...

  • Abolish the Giuliani tax lien sale law to ensure that sales of foreclosed properties do not prioritize private developers and instead, properties can be considered as spaces for CLTs
  • Fund technical support for Community Land Trusts
  • Engage in thoughtful outreach to low-income families as part of constituent outreach
  • Ensure that there is clarity about ownership and the responsibility that board members and governing officials have to land owners as stewards in legally defining CLTs
  • Provide assistance and support, rather than assume leadership as city officials, so that CLTs do not lose their radical and community oriented strategy
  • Prevent the transfer of public land to private developers;
  • Work with CLTs to help formerly incarcerated folks obtain home ownership;
  • Require housing cooperative boards and CLTs to reveal their rationale behind denials and rejections to protect homeowners of color from discriminationatory housing practices
  • Host webinars or workshops and provide references to resources for future homeowners, touching on topics including:
    • Improvement of credit scores
    • Taking out mortgages
    • Financing a home for the first time
  • Work with colleagues in the State legislature to pass the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) and Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA)
  • Work with the Department of Housing and Preservation Development (HPD) to provide better funding for down-payment assistance

+ Rent relief

Even before the pandemic, rent has been rapidly increasing throughout the City and it has made it difficult for tenants to be able to remain in their homes. The need for rent relief is more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic now that many New Yorkers have lost income and find it difficult to make rent. It is important that the City Council ensures that there are mechanisms to keep constituents in their homes without fear of eviction. In addition, the City Council should focus on building permanent, affordable housing for all, especially for folks who have been displaced, rather than building shelters and temporary housing. Area Median Income (AMI) depicts a skewed measure of affordability, and one way of addressing this would be to advocate with allies in the federal legislature for calculating AMI at the neighborhood or census tract level, so that affordability is a hyper-local, specific metric. However, my long term vision for just, decommodified housing does not center AMI or a program like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH), because housing should be a guaranteed right for all. Ultimately, a metric, like AMI, should not determine if someone has quality and stable access to housing.

As City Council Member, Shahana will...

  • Partner and advocate with the State Senate and Assembly to:
    • Cancel COVID-19 rent and utilities
      • Tenants should not have to provide proof of loss of income or financial hardship to receive relief
    • Modeling off the State Senate’s Rent Relief Program (RRP), Shahana will advocate for the City to provide rent subsidies for tenants past COVID-19. Suspend rent payments and provide waivers for tenants who are facing financial hardship, even past-COVID-19, to prevent folks from being evicted. The relief should be tenant-focused rather than landlord-focused.
  • Partner with local grassroots housing organizations for outreach and to circulate information about rent relief
  • Provide rent grants/stipends to tenants and non-profit partners who own affordable housing projects
    • Grants for folks who are displaced (ex. homeless, formerly incarcerated)
  • Partner with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to:
    • Implement automatic enrollment into rent increase exemption programs for senior citizens and disabled folks (SCRIE and DRIE) to ensure those who are eligible receive relief
      • Host workshops for constituents on the SCRIE and DRIE application, ensuring that there is language accessibility and outreach to Black and Brown neighborhoods
      • Ensure that SCRIE and DRIE abatements reflect the financial situation of folks who apply for the program
      • SCRIE should cap rents at one third or one half of household income for beneficiaries of the program to provide relief for seniors
      • Host workshops to explain HSTPA protections and rights for tenants

+ Housing legal reform and support for tenant organizing

Protecting tenants mandates individual support for constituents and vulnerable community members and also requires systemic overhauls to our overall legal system to protect and prioritize tenants over landlords. As a municipal legislator, Shahana has the ability to make changes in our infrastructure to ensure that tenants, not landlords, are protected and prioritized first within the confines of our legal system. Legal services and resources should be available for all tenants, regardless of ability to pay, to ensure that everyone has a fair chance in court. As Director of Organizing and Community Engagement for Council Member Brad Lander, Shahana hosted legal aid and political education workshops in partnership with CUNY Citizenship Now!, offered in Bangla, for free for community members.

As City Council Member, Shahana will...

  • Host Know Your Rights trainings for tenants that cover tenant’s rights, such as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, civil rights compliance around Section 3 local hiring and homeownership opportunities, and other building and tenant related training and organizing.
  • Expand Right to Counsel, a legal right that all New Yorkers have to an attorney, to include housing issues beyond eviction, such as initial rent negotiations to ensure that potential tenants are not getting scammed in leases or subleasing issues.
  • Legalize basement apartments and increase funding for the Basement Pilot Program which was almost entirely cut during COVID-19, which left residents vulnerable to flooding and death.