BY THE VILLAGE SUN | New local Councilmembers Erik Bottcher and Christopher Marte have been appointed co-chaipersons of the City Council’s Manhattan delegation. They celebrated with an enthusiastic high-five.
Neither one, though, was appointed chairperson of a Council committee. According to a source, there’s speculation that this was payback for both of them having backed Francisco Moya in the race for Council speaker, which was won by Adrienne Adams. The source said Bottcher, in fact, badly wanted to be commissioner of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management.
During his election campaign, Bottcher released a comprehensive sanitation plan. More recently, he has been highlighting the fact that garbage-truck pickups in Manhattan are barely above 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels, which helps explain the overflowing trash baskets.
But, in an interview with The Village Sun on Monday, Bottcher downplayed not landing a committee chairpersonship.
He noted that with only 30-some-odd committees but 51 councilmembers — including returning members who have seniority — it’s just a fact that not everyone is going to wind up chairing a committee.
Although not its chairperson, Bottcher is a member of the Sanitation Committee, as well as the Committees on Mental Health; Public Safety; Land Use (and its Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises); Consumer Affairs; and Civil Service and Labor.
“I’m actually pretty happy with my committee assignments,” he said, adding that they are some of the “best committees” in the City Council.
“I’d rather be on a bunch of committees that I care about. I’m still going to lead on that issue,” he assured on sanitation.
Meanwhile, Marte is on some good committees, as well, including the Committees on Aging; Resiliency and Waterfronts; Civil and Human Rights; Education; Parks and Recreation; Landmarks; and Senior Centers and Food Insecurity.
Bottcher’s District 3 includes most of Greenwich Village, along with Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, while Marte’s District 1 covers Lower Manhattan, including Tribeca, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Soho, Noho and some of the Village, including Washington Square.
It’s too bad Marte got on Landmarks and Resiliency, but at least he’s not on Land Use, Zoning or Housing.
LES3025, re: Chris Marte — Why? Because he’s not a rabid pro-landlord proponent like you and would fight big real estate to protect his constituents? Go Chris go!
It seems like you may not understand the difference between a landlord and a developer, or what policies are pro-tenant or anti-tenant. If anyone is rabidly pro-landlord, it would be Chris Marte. He spends his time fighting against the construction of new housing, which raises the value of landlords’ property and the amount of rent they can charge. I, on the other hand, think landlords are parasites and have never made a pro-landlord comment on here. I support building more housing to decrease the power of landlords. I don’t particularly care for developers, and we should cut back some of the benefits they get, but they at least provide a good that we need. Hope that cleared it up for you.
LES, your persistent hatred for District 1 homeowners that you habitually mischaracterize as all landlords is transparent.
You are either a paid full-time outside real estate predator troll hired to post disinformation and pro-developer propaganda nonstop here — or an unemployed broker with OCD.
So do you get paid per word or per troll?
So you’re an Open New York sycophant?
I’m not a member of Open New York. Never been to one of their meetings. I do agree with what they’re doing. Maybe I should join! I mostly just like posting though.
Are you with these guys?
“Common Sense NYC Inc., a Super PAC whose top three funders are Stephen Ross, Ronald Lauder, and Jack Cayre. While City Council campaign dollars are limited, Super PAC money from deep-pocketed real estate developers like these are virtually limitless.”
https://boweryboogie.com/2021/06/marte-city-council-campaign-fights-back-against-pac-smear-ads/
“But the less affordable housing a developer builds, the more profit they could make, so the developer deploys the viability assessment. This allows them to go back to the council and say that the amount of affordable housing they originally agreed is no longer possible.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2017/07/developers-are-using-trick-get-out-building-affordable-homes
Like I said, I don’t care much for developers themselves, but they provide a good that we need. Stephen Ross specifically can rot though.
Do you realize the second article you posted is about the U.K.? Viability assessments aren’t a part of our system in NY. If your point is just that for-profit developers prefer to build less affordable housing than more, then OK, obviously. Doesn’t change the fact that building more housing diminishes landlord power, which is what I was talking about in the post you responded to.
“I recall homeowners’ jubilation at initially acquiring a below-market-priced home, and then a few years later selling it at full market price and moving on to a grander living space. Of course that is a good thing, but clearly is not what could happen with policies that worked to create sustained affordable housing.”
https://truthout.org/articles/to-limit-housing-discrimination-close-affordable-housing-loopholes/
“If the allocating agency fails to identify a qualified buyer within one year, the property is released from the affordability requirements of the Housing Credit program. As the qualified contract formula price almost always significantly exceeds the market value of the property a buyer is rarely found. Since this loophole was first exploited, more owners are using qualified contracts as a strategy to flip LIHTC properties to market rate and raise rents after only 15 years of affordability.”
https://nhc.org/press-release/nhc-supports-bipartisan-bill-to-save-affordable-housing-50000-units-lost-to-loophole/
“An HDFC cooperative exists, per New York state law, “exclusively to develop a housing project for persons of low income.” That doesn’t stop some HDFC buildings from advertising how lax they are about enforcing income limits. Bloomberg Businessweek found dozens of listings dating to 2010 that failed to mention income restrictions for the building or plainly said there were none. A four-bedroom unit at 238 W. 106th St. was listed this year for $1.85 million and advertised as having “no income restrictions,” despite city records showing it benefits from the exemption for low-income housing. ”
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-nyc-taxes-hdfc-coops/
Not really sure what point you’re making because you’re just posting quotes from articles. If you’re trying to say there are big problems with our affordable housing programs, you’re not going to get any objection from me. You forgot to include 421a, which is one of the most egregious handouts to developers and unfortunately it looks like Hochul isn’t going to fix it.
All I said was that we need to build more homes and building more homes hurts landlords.
Please mention Little Italy as part of District 1. Not doing so is equivalent to cultural erasure.
Yay, Chris Marte!!
For Bottcher it’s karma for betraying our small businesses by not amending the Small Business Jobs Survival Act and moving it to a vote as promised by Johnson. Time will expose the key role he played in denying economic justice to the Village’s small business owners.
For Marte, he has been influenced by a Village real estate owners and will stop supporting any bill that gives rights to the business owners when their leases expire. Marte will never regulate commercial landlords. A little better than Chin but not by much.
How about details?
God save us … well, Marte might.