This is the second in a series of short interviews with candidates along with their responses to a very long questionnaire based on reader questions. When these are published I will refer to the contributions of other candidates below.
It was not difficult for Christopher Marte to find reasons to run for the city council. He grew up in Bowery and Rivington and watched his father close his bodega due to rising rents. as a former public school, it was converted into a luxury hotel for a non-profit association despite a certificate restriction; when the state refused to make improvements to the nearby NYCHA housing project.
"I've seen gentrification and displacement happening right in front of me," he says when asked why he is running. "And I've seen the influence a councilman has on these land deals." He ran against Margaret Chin in 2017 and was narrow with 200 votes; This time he quit his job to focus on the full-time campaign.
Marte, 31, attended PS 20, then Nativity Mission Center School for middle school, and St. Agnes on the Upper West Side for high school before leaving town for college and receiving a scholarship that took him to the all over the world and finished his final year at the London School of Economics. His first job was in finance at the IBM Pension Fund. He left IBM in 2017 to work for Arena, a Democratic PAC funded largely with tech money that focused on turning seats.
And since he stopped camping, he has spent his time organizing potential voters: he co-founded Neighbors United Below Canal to fight the prison planned for White Street and has white papers on resilience, hygiene , Composting and other quality of life issues.
Side note: his brother, Coss Marte, was in Rikers for years and was convicted of the drug kingpin that he actually was. He has since been released and started a personal training service called Conbody. VICE made a documentary about him that is well worth the watch. This is how Marte partially came to his position in the prisons of the district. "I've seen Rikers, I've seen what it did to my brother," he said. “He told me that building this prison will not help reform the criminal justice system. And I know that $ 11 billion to build this prison is not the right move. "
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HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Do you have solutions to protect small businesses from the pressures of rising real estate costs? (Tax breaks for landlords who run corner shops?)
The Small Business Jobs Survival Act will help keep commercial leases from suddenly skyrocketing and give owners more leverage when they need to renegotiate their leases. We can control rising real estate costs through community-based reallocation that limits speculation. Only parts of Tribeca have protected zones, and that's only thanks to the efforts of local activists. When developers are given the free hand to build whatever they want, they always opt for luxury towers with expensive retail space on the ground floor. Rezoning can give us bargaining power in these transactions to advocate affordable housing and commercial space.
What is your suggestion or attitude towards the future of open restaurants after the pandemic?
a. Open restaurants were a big void while our small businesses eagerly awaited financial relief from the federal government, but in the long term we need to redesign the program. At best, open restaurants give small restaurants additional space to safely serve customers and increase their bottom line, and give them the chance to offset the rent owed. However, without real financial support, the Open Restaurants program will never be enough to help these restaurants truly recover. In the worst case, open restaurants cause hygiene, noise and traffic risks. None of these obstacles are insurmountable, but the future of the program should include more input and regulation from the community. As small businesses get back on their feet, we should research this public space giveaway and make sure those who don't have the money to spend in restaurants and cafes can enjoy even more public seating.
b. During this pandemic, many regulations regarding the structure of open restaurants have changed rapidly. I worked with a local law firm to provide free advice to small businesses, many of which are immigrant owned, to ensure their spaces are helping to increase their income rather than increasing what they could be punished for.
Do you have solutions to limit the regulations and paperwork required to start and maintain small businesses?
c. As the son and brother of small business owners in Lower Manhattan, I know how much red tape can actually arise. Even good small business owners can expect fines for the smallest of violations, and a complex approval structure only adds to start-up and maintenance costs. During the pandemic, small businesses had to close for their own safety, but too many lacked the savings to survive due to low margins. I worked with a network of small business owners helping them apply for PPP loans, grants, and helping set up free outdoor dining legal advice and lease renegotiations. We can never take the small businesses that make up our city for granted, and we need small business services that don't just become a passive information center. It should be the job of SBS to collect information from small businesses and then act as a liaison for that business to other agencies that issue the wide range of permits. We should get rid of outdated fines and provide financial exemptions for new small businesses that need assistance. Multi-agency raids, particularly those involving the NYPD, should be halted altogether. These raids often target minority-owned companies, terrorize customers and employees, and are a violent overreaction to suspected violations. SBS should offer free advice or tours to help small business owners, especially new potential violations, correct them before they are fined or punished.
QUALITY OF LIFE QUESTIONS
Do you have solutions for the helicopter traffic that often plagues the neighborhood and others?
I was happy to see that our congressional delegation supported a bill to prevent helicopters from flying over and around the city and national parks like the Statue of Liberty and Governors Island. Not only are we pushing for federal regulation, but we can also work on a local level to reclaim the use of our pillars for our community for ferries, maritime companies or additional recreational space.
This neighborhood has been under construction for decades. Do you have a solution to make construction sites better neighbors? (Limit hours, monitor vibration and hours, prohibit blocking sidewalks or streets) (and don't say call 311)
I support intro 1353-2019 which will force the Department of Buildings to fine owners who have been scaffolding for more than 6 months but would aim for an even shorter timeframe. Often the construction workers keep the scaffolding upright, even if the development itself is in a month-long pause.
The garbage collection seems to be at an all-time low. Do you have solutions for better street cleaning? And many private buildings leave mountains of rubbish on the sidewalks waiting to be picked up. Can that be regulated?
Lower Manhattan had serious plumbing problems even before the mayor cut the plumbing department's budget by $ 106 million. We don't have to accept 6 foot high stacks of garbage bags on narrow sidewalks as the norm. I would strongly advocate an immediate expansion of the Clean Curbs pilot program so that all commercial spaces can have road containers for garbage and recycling stores. We can restructure our systems so that waste shippers charge higher prices for garbage and lower prices for recycling and compost. This is the opposite of how their tiered pricing models currently work. I've spent almost every weekend in the Tribeca green market and constantly admire the dozen, if not hundreds, of people who bring their compost with them each week. I am determined to increase funding for GrowNYC and the Lower East Side Ecology Center so that we can expand composting facilities in more locations and with greater frequency. Our campaign's first white paper focused solely on sanitation and waste streams as we know this is a district-wide issue that can improve our quality of life and the health of our planet. You can read it at www.votemarte.com/sanitation
The NYPD has consistently used its power to shut down public spaces and facilities, especially during the pandemic. Do you have any suggestion for this problem?
Even before the pandemic, abuse of NYPD posters severely restricted public access to sidewalks, bike paths and streets. Now marches and rallies are being used as an excuse for the NYPD to expand its seizure of public space even further. There's no reason to close a public park like City Hall Park in a neighborhood that initially lacks open space. The walkway between City Hall and the Tweed Courthouse is an important route to providing a safer route for older and young pedestrians than it is on busy Chambers Street. If I were the councilor I would call the police station every day and ask that they stop this seizure of public space. Protests and marches are nothing new in New York, but police have used the Black Lives Matter demonstrations as an excuse to expand their presence in an already heavily police district. During the actions against the new prison and the luxury towers at Two Bridges, I worked with these districts to protect the public's right to peaceful assembly and protest. None of these actions ever resulted in protesters being injured or the NYPD taking revenge on the community. I am the only candidate who will bring this mediation experience to this seat of the Council.
PEDESTRIAN PROTECTION
We have the great advantage and privilege of being a hiking community, so we often look for ways to increase pedestrian safety. What do you think of the expansion of the pedestrian zones? Do you have any other suggestions related to pedestrian safety?
I support the expansion of pedestrian zones and the implementation of plans such as the FiDi neighborhood plan: Make way for Lower Manhattan. During the peak of this pandemic, in particular, there was a significant drop in car traffic and residents were able to experience the roads in new ways. The streets became park-like and allowed more recreational space for children and pets.
I often hear from pedestrians almost being hit by cyclists on the sidewalk and we can find a win-win solution to reduce the risk of accidents. Many of the streets in Tribeca have fast moving cars exiting the West Side Highway or congested traffic approaching the Holland Tunnel. This presents dangerous conditions for cyclists and encourages them to ride the sidewalk and take the risk of getting around pedestrians. If we create protected bike lanes that are interconnected so that cyclists never have to take the risk of driving right next to a car, we will definitely see fewer bikes on the sidewalk too. We also need to get more speed bumps off the freeway and I would work with the DOT to ease the flow of traffic so our roads are safer and the air quality cleaner.
HOUSELESS SERVICES
Do you have new solutions to address those who refuse to go to shelters?
Both non-profit and city-run accommodations require higher standards of safety and quality of life for residents. Many people who refuse to go to shelters do so because they have had bad experiences in our shelter system. We need to invest in clean and safe accommodations where residents don't have to worry about sharing a bedroom with dangerous roommates or stealing their belongings. We also need to fund long-term supportive accommodation for people struggling with addiction or suffering from chronic or severe mental illness. Services should be located in temporary shelters or supportive housing to facilitate residents' access to health care, professional training and the transition to permanent housing. Funding the DHS to allow more people with homelessness to check-in on the street is also vital to help them build trust faster, as noted in the article linked above. Ending homelessness will require serious investment, but it will save the city money in the long run, as it will cut the cost of half the measures we currently have, such as: B. hotel accommodations, are very high. A more humane social safety net is also being created to give families a real chance to live in permanent housing.
AFFORDABLE LIVING
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the status of affordable housing in the city center and in our zip codes. What can be done to get it? What can you suggest to create more sub-market housing?
As mentioned in other answers, community-based reallocation and moving from empty office space to apartments are our best tools for creating new and affordable housing. We urgently need to urge the next mayor to end Mayor de Blasio's failed Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, which fell far short of its goal of providing affordable rents to those in the lowest income brackets. These tax breaks will bring the city the much-needed revenue to build its own affordable housing, especially on public land and in public-private partnerships. Our district has seen opportunities for 100% affordable housing, but is missing the mark because our elected officials are not strong enough to end our housing and homelessness crisis. Essex Street Crossing was promised the community as a 100% affordable housing development and we only got 50% instead. 5 The World Trade Center could easily provide 100% affordable housing for adults and families in moderate to low income brackets, rather than just 330 new units that are still unaffordable for many workers. I have a track record of taking on challenging land use struggles and already achieving great victories through consistent education, outreach, and community organization. In the city council, we will finally have the power to go much further and create truly affordable housing for families and seniors. I received unanimous approval from the Chinatown Working Group, a coalition advocating community-based rededication of the Lower East Side and Chinatown. I also spoke out in favor of the FiDi neighborhood plan.
AGING
Which solutions for seniors in the areas of housing, mobility and access to basic needs can ensure that the city center is a place that residents do not have to leave in old age?
With the governor looking to green light a process that will allow more office space to convert homes, we have a great opportunity to help lower Manhattan aged seniors determine the age. Many commercial buildings have elevators installed even if they occupy older buildings. Plumbing and renovation work on these existing buildings is still less expensive than demolishing an existing building and building a new one. Some of these converted units must be reserved for senior citizens, especially those living on a fixed income. I'm also going to pressure the owners of the many vacancies in the neighborhood to reach out to grocery stores to fill in the space. Not everyone in Tribeca can afford to shop at Whole Foods, and most of all, with the growing population in the area, we need more access to food.
WHITE STREET PRISON
How do you feel about the prison plan for this place? If you're against it, what do you suggest instead to make up for the loss of Rikers?
I've been actively campaigning against the mayor's deeply flawed plan since he announced it. When I co-founded Neighbors United Below Canal, a community group that educates and organizes residents about the new prison planned for Chinatown / Tribeca, it wasn't politically popular to fight it. But through years of or community meetings, town halls, protests, and the largest march in Chinatown in over 60 years, we've achieved historic victories. Our lawsuit showed that the municipality was excluded from the planning process and that the city used too many acronyms in its public health and environmental impact review. We won in the New York Supreme Court, and while the city tries to overturn our victory, we will not stop organizing against this plan.
I fully support closing Rikers and not building new prisons. The $ 11 billion allocated to building new prisons will do nothing to address the root causes of crime. Investing these funds in schools, mental health services, addiction counseling, and family counseling will go much further in order to achieve a safer and fairer city. If we initiate common sense reform, we can move beyond the era of the mass incineration and all of its costs and consequences.
PRESERVE HISTORICAL AREAS
Both in the proposal for 250 water in the historic South Street Seaport district and in the proposal to rededicate SoHo / NoHo, threats to historic neighborhoods have recently come very close to home. Both intend to offer affordable housing in exchange for much taller and bulkier buildings and to reject the rules for zoning historic neighborhoods. What is your opinion on the preservation of historic districts?
I'm running for the city council to end the divisive rhetoric used by conservationists against lawyers for affordable housing. A community-based land use policy can help us to maintain affordable housing by deterring speculation that prompts builders to crowd out rent-stabilized tenants. Rent stabilized tenants in the Bowery were illegally evicted by their landlord because he wanted to tear down their building to build luxury apartments. I helped gather the community behind them, and we forced the landlord to let them go home – but this situation would never have happened if we had set up a protection zone.
My platform consists not only of standpoints on topics like the reallocation of SoHo and Seaport, but of real actions. When the mayor was hosting community engagement sessions that intentionally left out key community voices in SoHo, I worked with artists and loft tenants to host our own town halls. Not only have I consistently spoken out against the ruthless development of a massive tower with very little affordable housing on 250 Water Street, but I've also testified at every hearing of the Community Board and Landmarks and supported rallies and marches. The mayor tries to impose irresponsible and pointless development plans before resigning, but so far the organization of the community has delayed his efforts. If I am elected to the city council, I will advocate neighborhood plans created by the community instead of real estate interests, and we can stop the overdevelopment and displacement of Lower Manhattan for good.
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OTHER CANDIDATES FOR CD1
Denny Salas
Maud Marron
Tiffany Winbush