Preserving Livable Neighborhoods

"New York City has the power to preserve and strengthen the common quality of life of the neighborhoods we love. It's time we started to use it."

Brad Lander's career has been about strengthening neighborhoods from the inside. As director of Fifth Avenue Committee, he helped to renovate abandoned buildings, save small businesses, and preserve the diversity that makes our neighborhoods special. As a community planner, he has worked with grassroots organizations and community boards in dozens of neighborhoods to achieve real results. From fighting against out-of-scale development, to overseeing the creation and preservation of thousands of units of affordable housing, to creating new community centers, Brad has worked on the ground to build livable communities for Brooklyn families.

Right now the system works for developers but too often leaves out community residents and their concerns. That has to change. Brad has a comprehensive agenda to ensure that our neighborhoods work for the families that live there:

• Give Communities a Real Voice in the Planning Process: The city planning process needs to work for ordinary families, not just developers and special interests. New York City needs proactive, comprehensive citywide planning that evaluates and prepares for the City's future, offers a "fair share" approach to meet our needs, provides the transportation, schools, and infrastructure neighborhoods need to cope with change, and enables communities to have a real say in shaping their future.
• Mandate that Any New Projects Meet "Good Growth" Standards: Too often, uncontrolled development is threatening the fabric of our neighborhoods and imposing new burdens on already stretched communities. Any new project should be evaluated based on whether it fits with the community's needs, is contextual, includes appropriate affordable housing, is built by responsible contractors, and is environmentally sustainable. All larger development projects should be required to address the challenges of growth that they pose - through a required, project-appropriate commitment of affordable housing, environmental infrastructure, and community needs (e.g. schools, child care). These things shouldn't be up for negotiation as community benefits. They should be the minimum and they should be the law.
• Guarantee Responsible Contracting: We must say no to contractors who disregard the well-being of their workers and the neighborhoods where they are engaged. All significant projects should be required to be built by certified responsible contractors. We need to stop jeopardizing the safety of construction workers and our neighbors by putting irresponsible contractors out of business. Contractors and architects with dangerous track records should be prohibited from obtaining building permits. We want to see contractors who pay good wages - union contractors, wherever possible - and offer jobs to local residents.
• Reform the Buildings Department: The Buildings Department has become hazardous to our health. The Department must stop taking the word of the firms it regulates - industry self-certification should be replaced with pro-active oversight. We need to create clear accountability for contractors and subcontractors, step up enforcement against sites with a history of violations and increase penalties for repeat violators and fund more frequent inspections by raising permit fees and actually collecting fines when they are assessed.
• Preserve and Invest in Small Businesses: On too many of our neighborhood shopping strips, locally-owned stores are being pushed out by chain stores and rising rents. Other cities use "neighborhood-retail zoning," formula retail bans that each neighborhoods can opt into, commercial rent control, and tax incentives to support the small businesses that make our neighborhoods special. We need such policies here.