A solar future (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Climate change is here – and it is here to stay unless we take immediate action. One simple but meaningful way to make an impact is to empower property owners with the tools they need to reduce or altogether eliminate building emissions.
Fortunately, the New York City Department of City Planning’s proposed City of Yes: Carbon Neutrality is up to the task. This zoning reform (a “zoning text amendment” in land use jargon) will help New York meet its goal of cutting 80% of carbon emissions by 2050.
At the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), our members want to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints, but archaic zoning rules stand in the way – rules created 60 years ago, in an era when asbestos insulation and leaded gasoline seemed like pretty good ideas. City Planning has put forth the right proposal to deal with this challenge, and now we just need the City Council to approve it.
Many affordable housing developments across the five boroughs were built in another era, long before energy efficiency became a priority – and long before modern tools were conceptualized and brought to market. What’s more, many affordable and public housing developments were built in low-lying areas that are particularly vulnerable to climate threats like storm surges and rising sea levels. In fact, we’ve already seen the damaging impacts from Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Ida, and other extreme weather events that are only growing more common.
Among other benefits, the proposed zoning tweaks would allow elevated solar panels to cover 100% of a roof area, possibly increasing potential solar energy generation by 290%. This is a massive step to improve solar energy progress in New York – a need that will only grow as electrification continues to gain prominence.
City of Yes: Carbon Neutrality would also enable building retrofits for exterior insulating panels, which will help prevent energy waste. Adding insulation inside a building often reduces apartment sizes and leaves gaps in the façade for heat to leak. Due to floor-area regulations for affordable housing properties, developers are often prevented from installing exterior cladding. The zoning change would help remove those arbitrary and outdated restrictions.
Heating and cooling systems across buildings are vital for reducing the city’s overall carbon footprint. Most New York building furnaces and boilers run on natural gas and oil, accounting for about 42% of the city’s total greenhouse emissions. However, current zoning text restricts infrastructure on roofs and yards, often preventing building owners from pursuing electrification. City of Yes: Carbon Neutrality would expand the ability to place HVAC equipment, like heat pumps, in these areas for more efficient energy systems.
In other words, these are minor changes everyone already agrees with that will have a big impact – and they are examples of the sort of proactive climate thinking New York needs.
Every day that the zoning text goes unchanged is another one that we are preventing more responsible, ethical energy practices in New York City. We cannot afford to skirt these changes any longer. We hope that the Community Boards, Borough Boards, Borough Presidents, City Planning Commission, and City Council will vote to approve this zoning text amendment as soon as possible. New Yorkers deserve no less.
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Jolie Milstein is president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing. On Twitter @NYSAFAH.
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Protecting halls of justice (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
In 2013, a fight broke out among dozens of people near a nightclub in the Bronx where Aaron Cedres worked as a bouncer, and one man was seriously injured. Though he insisted that he had only broken up a separate fight, Cedres was charged with gang assault, a charge that carried up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Prosecutors told Cedres’ public defender that surveillance footage of the fight looked bad and offered him a plea deal for five years in prison. He maintained his innocence and urged his attorney to acquire the footage.
Cedres’s attorney requested the footage from the District Attorney but they delayed and delayed, taking months to turn over security footage that ultimately disproved the allegations against him. Discovery laws — laws pertaining to the disclosure of evidence — were in the prosecutors’ favor; they were not required to turn over the video footage until they were ready for trial. They used the law to their advantage to try to pressure Cedres into taking a plea deal without seeing the evidence against him, or risk going to trial where he faced a greater prison sentence.
After more than a year, his case was dismissed, but the charges had already cost him his job, his car, and his apartment. Cedres won his case, but lost everything else due to New York’s antiquated discovery laws.
In 2019, in an effort to address this and similar injustices, New York overhauled its discovery laws, falling in line with 47 other states that require full and timely discovery. Yet, alongside New York prosecutors, Governor Hochul is now trying to undo this progress in ongoing closed-door budget negotiations. They would revert the state’s evidence-sharing practices back to the same era that upended the life of Aaron Cedres and so many others.
For decades, prosecutors and police were allowed to withhold evidence from people accused of crimes and their attorneys until the eve of trial, effectively “blindfolding” them.
This unjust system denied people access to crucial information, such as police reports and witness statements, keeping them and their attorneys in the dark — unable to investigate, prepare a defense, or make an informed decision about whether to accept a plea offer. Even when discovery contradicted the prosecutor’s allegations, cast doubt on a person’s guilt, or exposed untruthful testimony by police or other witnesses, prosecutors routinely got away with withholding this vital information.
The consequences of the “Blindfold Law” were delayed trials, less effective defense representation, coerced guilty pleas, and one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the nation.
In 2019, the State Legislature enacted a fair discovery statute, which required prosecutors to turn over evidence in a timely and meaningful way, avoiding delays and allowing defense attorneys to adequately prepare for trial.
Now, Governor Hochul and some New York District Attorneys are pushing to gut these transformative discovery laws.
Their proposed legislative changes would shift the burden of identifying discoverable evidence to the defense. This is a practical impossibility as only prosecutors are in a position to know what evidence police have collected in an investigation. If enacted, the change would effectively destroy the 2019 legislation, striking a major blow to transparency and the need to hold prosecutors and police accountable.
This last-minute proposal comes as a shock. Governor Hochul did not seek any changes to the discovery law in her initial budget proposal. And in February, the District Attorneys Association testified that prosecutors need more money to implement the law, but did not call for legislative changes.
One thing is clear: prosecutors and defenders acknowledge that for the discovery system to function as intended, more resources are needed for both sides. In 2022, we all met with Governor Hochul’s office to discuss solutions to a growing backlog of cases caused by the pandemic, and we agreed that more funding was needed for staffing and technology to collect, store, share, and review digital evidence.
Police and prosecutors also must agree to a uniform digital transfer system so that DAs aren’t gathering the evidence piece by piece from individual officers, delaying discovery. The refusal or inability to share files between police and prosecutors is no reason to overturn the law.
Despite our agreed-upon solution, prosecutors have suddenly pointed to a supposed increase in dismissals, citing their inability to comply with discovery as the primary cause. This is untrue. The current law has many “safety-valves” when DAs cannot fully comply with the law: DAs simply need to show that they started requesting the information early and that they did so more than once. Worth noting: their data is incomplete because the reasons for dismissals weren’t accurately tracked until the spring of 2022. It is also clear that the lengthy pandemic affected case outcomes, resulting in dismissals as a way to reduce the backlogs.
Fulfilling the promise of a fairer criminal legal system requires firm commitment to the 2019 landmark law — not a retreat from it that will absolve prosecutors of their obligations and have devastating consequences for people awaiting trial. We urge state legislators to resist the governor’s and prosecutors’ attempt to weaken our discovery laws. Justice depends on it.
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Yung-Mi Lee is President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Mark Funk is President of the Chief Defenders Association of New York. On Twitter @NYSACDL & @chiefdefendsNY.
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Helping with immigration paperwork (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Imagine if we could fulfill the American Dream for tens of thousands of vulnerable migrants, save vast amounts of money on temporary housing, and add to the city’s tax base – all at no cost and with no downside. It’s possible: President Biden must give all of New York City’s asylum-seekers employment authorization — today — by granting humanitarian parole to our newest New Yorkers.
New York City is more than $1 billion into a humanitarian disaster not of our making with no end in sight. At least 55,000 migrants from the United States/Mexico border have arrived in the city since April 2023, and more than 34,000 are in the city’s care, according to the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. To meet the need, the City has opened 103 emergency shelters and eight massive humanitarian centers.
Tens of thousands of vulnerable migrants in New York City want and need to work, but very few have been approved to do so. No work means no money. No money means no way to afford an apartment or groceries. No apartment or groceries means full dependence on city social services and non-profit organizations. Full dependence on social services and non-profits means a heavy strain on the city budget and the migrants’ dignity and mobility.
Asylum-seekers are eligible to apply for employment authorization 180 days after their first check-in with an immigration judge. The backlog in immigration court is so severe (there are already more than 110,000 pending asylum cases in New York State) that new appointments for initial check-ins are booked until at least 2025. Some appointments are being scheduled as far out as 2029.
In other words, for tens of thousands of New York City’s recently-arrived migrants, the 180-day clock won’t even start for two to five years.
New York City’s legal service providers estimate just 5% of the 55,000 migrants have completed their first appearance. Those who have are still subject to United States Citizen and Immigration Services backlogs: it takes another 8 to 18 months for employment authorization applications to be approved.
The question is, how do we fix this?
First, the federal government should grant humanitarian parole of at least two years to the migrants who are already in the city. Humanitarian parole provides temporary lawful status in the U.S. while cases are adjudicated and allows migrants to secure work authorization within five to ten months. Humanitarian parole does not take away the requirement to apply for asylum or seek another form of permanent status. It is temporary relief, not a path to citizenship, until additional applications for relief are submitted.
The Biden administration is already using humanitarian parole for 100,000 Ukrainians and 85,000 Afghans. It is a long-established tool to resettle large numbers of people and start their lives while pursuing immigration status in the United States. Temporary Protective Status (TPS) is another route the federal government could take, but the wait time for work authorization is much longer, approximately two years.
Homeland Security has the discretion to grant humanitarian parole without Congressional action. It is adaptable and immediate. The regulations are broad: parole can be granted for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.” President Biden should think about what that means in New York City.
Second, the City must increase funding to legal service providers. There are not enough attorneys to get applications moving and maintain continuity of representation for 55,000 migrants (and counting). The New York Immigration Coalition and Catholic Charities Community Services of New York – two of the organizations spearheading legal services for migrants – estimate an additional $30 million is needed for an initial and effective, sustained response on top of the $31.1 million already allocated by Mayor Adams.
Next, the City needs to help with pathways to jobs and financial independence. We commend the mayor for calling on Washington to speed up work authorizations, including through the use of humanitarian parole. In the meantime, the city can do more to prepare people for employment.
There should be English language classes at hotels and shelters, including lessons that are tailored to workplace vocabulary and communication. The City should connect even more migrants with job training and certification programs. There should be financial literacy workshops that help migrants obtain an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), which enables payment of income taxes and helps to establish “good character” in the eyes of immigration court judges. These small investments pay dividends.
Nonprofits are already doing this work. Organizations like the Staten Island-based La Colmena support immigrant workers with a robust list of services such as apprenticeships, resumé writing courses, and legal clinics. Their Occupational Safety and Healthcare Administration (OSHA) and Site Safety Training (SST) courses are in such high demand that there is a 400-person waiting list.
New York City is perhaps the only city in the nation with the infrastructure, jobs, and generosity to handle this crisis, but we can’t sustain it if migrants can’t work. Washington must grant humanitarian parole now.
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City Council Member Gale Brewer represents parts of Manhattan. Murad Awawdeh is executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. On Twitter @galeabrewer & @HeyItsMurad.
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