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De Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan Comes Under Fire at Hearing

A push by Mayor Bill de Blasio to allow developers to build taller buildings across the city as long as they include affordable housing was met with vehement opposition at a public hearing on Wednesday.

Critics blasted the mayor's Zoning for Quality and Affordability initiative — part of de Blasio's 10-year affordable housing plan designed to change regulations so that building new housing is easier and cheaper — during the Department of City Planning's hearing at their lower Manhattan office.

Their main complaint was the lack of transparency the mayor's office has offered to date. The city has not publicized the plan enough in order to push it through without substantial community input, according to the lineup of speakers — ranging from elected officials to everyday citizens, and even a former member of the City Planning Commission.

“If not for the fact of emails flying from Greenwich Village… to civic groups in Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Bronx," said Ed Jaworski, president of the Marine-Madison-Homecrest Civic Association in Brooklyn, "this might have been held before two people.”

The hearing ran for more than three hours, and city officials said anyone who still wants to weigh in can submit written testimony before April 6. The Department of City Planning will then produce the actual text of the proposed amendments, and another public review process will commence, DCP officials said.

Amending the city's zoning regulations will allow the city to create badly-needed senior housing and "encourage better quality buildings that contribute to the fabric of neighborhoods," according to DCP director Robert Dobruskin, who led the hearing.

But organizers who fought to secure neighborhood-specific construction regulations around the city — in places like Greenwich Village, The Rockaways, and Bay Ridge — fumed at the possibility that the city could undo their work.

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http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/2015...ire-at-hearing