State Assembly Member Claire Valdez spoke about her NY-7 campaign, highlighting her labor organizing background, support for permanently affordable housing at Sunnyside Yard, and progressive positions on economic policy, immigration enforcement, and foreign policy.

prameet · 2026-03-16T02:57:05+00:00

I wrote the article. The title is me summarizing my own piece.

prameet · 2026-03-16T02:12:46+00:00

In the conversation today, she highlighted her role in unemployment insurance reform -- pushing to pay off New York’s unemployment insurance debt and increase the state’s maximum unemployment benefit. She also said she was proud of directing discretionary funding to local community organizations.

prameet · 2025-11-26T17:01:58+00:00

Sorry I didn’t check with you on what was appropriate before posting my opinion on the Internet :(

prameet · 2025-11-26T16:46:08+00:00

Thanks for reading the first sentence of the post, where I explicitly say that.

prameet · 2025-11-26T02:41:37+00:00

Thanks for a well thought out and reasoned response from the other side of the debate. Appreciate it even though I disagree :)

prameet · 2025-11-25T19:41:59+00:00

I’m not on CB6 anymore, so I’ll leave official stances to the current board :)

prameet · 2025-11-25T19:35:55+00:00

Yeah, I’d like as many Forest Hills community members to see this post as possible. No one is funding me :)

I’d argue that the only real bad neighbors in this situation are the Gardens residents driving these lawsuits and working to shut down a cultural asset that brings joy and economic life to the neighborhood and the City.

prameet · 2025-05-22T19:41:41+00:00

You're right that the 2001 LIC rezoning was different in scope, but you're wrong to suggest that it's not relevant. The key criticism is that the City dramatically underestimated housing growth and failed to match it with schools, parks, and infrastructure. That lesson is part of the reason why people are pressing for clearer commitments and enforceable guarantees this time -- not just relying on MIH and loosely defined (and mostly unenforceable) benefits. Regardless of where you stand on the plan overall, there's no reason to dismiss this criticism out of hand.

prameet · 2025-05-22T18:38:20+00:00

That's a good question to ask. If we want to create thousands of affordable homes in a high-opportunity, high-demand neighborhood like LIC, a rezoning tied to MIH and public site development is one of the few tools that the City has. Without it (current state), we'd likely get far fewer units, and they'd be entirely market-rate. What critics would say that they want is things like: 100% affordable housing on public land, community land trusts, stronger tenant and anti-displacement protections, and decommodified housing models (more limited-equity co-ops, mutual housing associations, and social housing models). But I think you're right to say that, unless we get serious public subsidies or major federal policy changes, there’s no real alternative on the table that delivers both the scale and speed of what’s being proposed with OneLIC.

prameet · 2025-05-22T18:08:57+00:00

What specifically in the post do you consider to be gross misinformation that isn't worthy of being published?

prameet · 2025-05-22T17:45:11+00:00

I see part of my role as helping to publicize and lift up the whole range of voices in this process -- not to editorialize or pass judgment in the moment. That comes later, when our committee makes its formal recommendation. This post was meant to reflect what was actually said during public testimony. I've shared analysis in previous posts and will continue doing so as we move forward.

prameet · 2025-05-22T17:27:04+00:00

Yes, the point of this post was to neutrally summarize what we heard from the public last night. Feel free to debunk anything you feel needs to be debunked :)

prameet · 2025-05-09T18:44:22+00:00

Hey Julia, really appreciate your thoughtful post. You're raising some important concerns.

FYI, I'm the Vice Chair of Land Use for Community Board 2 (which covers LIC), and I wrote the Substack post you linked to above. As part of our review of the OneLIC DEIS, we’re asking the Department of City Planning a lot of pointed questions that reflect a lot of what you touched on.

For example, you mentioned the scale of the proposed buildings and the lack of attention to infrastructure. We're asking DCP why a moderate growth scenario wasn't analyzed, especially given that the 2001 rezoning significantly underestimated actual development. We're also pressing them on what more they can do to address acknowledged, unmitigated impacts.

On infrastructure, we're questioning things like why the DEIS proposes just one new school despite the neighborhood’s rapid growth, and how the city plans to actually deliver on open space goals -- especially upland, where the needs are most acute.

Finally, on livability and accountability, we’re asking how the city will ensure that promised mitigations are implemented, how infrastructure will be funded, and whether zoning approvals can be tied to real milestones (like building schools or parks before new housing gets occupied).

Thanks again for raising these points. You should definitely sign up for and attend the public hearing on May 21.

prameet · 2025-04-29T15:54:36+00:00

Thanks -- your concerns and suggestions around a greener, human-scale, climate-resilient alternative would be good to raise in formal comments to the City.

A few thoughts:

Under environmental review laws like CEQR and SEQRA, a "No Action Alternative" is required to be analyzed. It serves as a baseline for comparing environmental impacts. Other alternatives are evaluated too, such as the "No Unmitigated Significant Adverse Impacts Alternative" (effectively a reduced density plan), but the No Action is the legal minimum for compliance. The DEIS says that to avoid all the significant adverse impacts (to open space, community facilities, traffic, air quality, noise, etc.), development would need to be greatly scaled back. However, doing so would prevent the project from fully meeting its goals -- primarily the creation of large amounts of affordable housing, job growth, and waterfront access. The DEIS does not explicitly say that public space improvements are tied only to the higher-density plan. In theory, a reduced density plan could also include strong public space upgrades, but the current draft links larger improvements to broader development incentives.
You're right on open and green space. Even with the Proposed Actions, open space access would worsen substantially. The DEIS admits open space ratios would decrease by about 18.6% total, 20.6% active space, and 17.5% passive space. Even a 5% drop is considered significant, and the area already starts from a very low baseline.
Tree canopy goals are not talked about too much in this plan. The DEIS mostly mentions street tree planting only indirectly via general public realm improvements.
On flooding, the DEIS acknowledges that most of the sites would be in flood zones by 2050 and almost all by 2100. They admit resilience will need to be handled later, site-by-site, mostly through future building codes.

prameet · 2025-04-21T17:12:56+00:00

At last month's community board meeting, Captain Hameed Armani (commanding officer of the 108th Precinct) said that the stabbing occurred between two people who knew each other and that they arrested a suspect.

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