Testimony Before the Committee on Land Use and the Committee on Housing and Buildings in Support of Int. 1031-2023

The Racial Impact Study Coalition thanks the Chairs for accepting our written testimony in support of Int. 1031-2023, and we ask that you take up the opportunity to ensure that the bill moves forward in a way that maintains its commitment to equity and fair housing.

The Racial Impact Study Coalition is a coalition of neighborhood, community-based, and planning groups who came together to ensure that the City of New York meaningfully considers racial impacts in making major land use decisions. Collectively we represent most of the communities that have been impacted by City-initiated rezonings in recent years and a wide spectrum of New York residents. We share a commitment to protecting our communities from racialized displacement and expanding permanently affordable housing to all neighborhoods, and we are excited to see the council taking seriously the urgent need for equity in planning, development, and the creation of affordable housing. We support the legislation proposed by the Speaker and allied council members and hope to work collaboratively with the council to strengthen the bill.

From 2019 through 2021, our coalition worked with the Public Advocate and the council to pass Local Law 78 of 2021 which created the Equitable Development Data Explorer. It was our hope that the tool would become widely used and allow communities to better advocate for our needs as well as be incorporated into formal planning processes. Int. 1031-2023 codifies the EDDE data as central to its methodology, which guarantees that the tool will be robustly maintained and that the metrics used to advance fair housing will be one that was developed in a robust collaboration between the coalition and DCP and HPD. This is precisely the way we hoped the EDDE would become entrenched in city decision-making processes and we are proud that our work provided the backbone of this legislation.

Int. 1031-2023 also incorporates the Displacement Risk Index to identify high displacement-risk community districts. Given that Local Law 78 legally mandates the structure and categories of indicators required by the tool, the use of this index assures community members that displacement risk is calculated using a method developed by HPD and DCP in consultation with a coalition of stakeholders and tested against eviction data to select the best formula for the index among alternatives.

The current bill provides a framework that will advance nuanced strategies based on the needs of each community district. Initiatives to increase and preserve affordable housing will be targeted in High-opportunity districts. High displacement risk communities will be targeted with preservation and anti-displacement initiatives, and underserved communities that have borne the brunt of affordable housing production will be targeted for neighborhood equity investments. This nuance is vital to the success of the legislation. Any equity-based planning must take into consideration the conditions of each community district, and blanket housing production goals or targets without nuance will only exacerbate existing inequity. We applaud this aspect of the proposal and acknowledge it is essential that it remains the foundation of the legislation.

The bill should also establish clear metrics for identifying “high opportunity community districts.” The DRI was crafted to identify displacement risk, and a community that reflects a low displacement risk does not necessarily indicate a high quality of life or access to opportunity, only stability relative to other community districts. Similarly, the EDDE does contain indicators on quality of life and access to opportunity, but those indicators largely focus on health outcomes, transit access, and educational attainment. These indicators alone are not likely sufficient to establish “high opportunity” for fair housing purposes. It is absolutely essential that a more robust process is mandated and clearly outlined by the legislation. We have seen time and time again programs and initiatives targeting low-income communities of color for housing production, but one of the strongest parts of this legislation is the inclusion of high-opportunity districts for the production of affordable housing. If the definitions of high-opportunity areas do not accurately reflect the areas that qualitatively have the highest opportunities, there is a substantial risk that the goals of the legislation will be undermined. A robust metric can be developed through a similar iterative process as the collaborative process between RISC and DCP and HPD that produced the current Displacement Risk Index and EDDE.

The Racial Impact Study coalition thanks you for the opportunity to submit testimony and looks forward to working together to produce a bill that will build on the steps towards equity and transparency the council has already taken with the passage with the creation of the Displacement risk index and the EDDE and expand upon them by using the data to enact substantive fair housing policies.