Council Member Richards, the author (photo: William Alatriste)
As the de Blasio administration pushes forward its Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) and Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) plans coupled together, the City Council plans to take the time to look at these two proposals separately. As chair of the Land Use Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, my committee has significant responsibility in this process. One thing is clear: a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.
Community Boards across the city have voiced their concerns about these two plans and we must let them know that we are listening. There are a variety of valid concerns.
As the proposals make their way to the City Council in early 2016, the administration needs to factor in community feedback and make appropriate changes to ensure that the voices of residents are not ignored. We must make sure we are not weakening existing zoning laws or the very process that allows residents to fight to protect the character of their neighborhoods.
After speaking with my colleagues, and as Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has said, the Zoning for Quality and Affordability plan will not pass muster in the City Council without changes.
One glaring issue of concern to me that should be removed is the as-of-right policy. We should not be eliminating the need for special permits to build nursing homes and healthcare facilities - doing so would push the city in the wrong direction. The construction of these buildings should have more oversight, not less, and the reason for the current process is to prevent the oversaturation of particular areas that are doing more than their fair share.
Currently, the permit process goes through the Department of City Planning. Developers should have to go through a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). Oversight is essential and communities need to be involved in any planning process that will affect their neighborhood.
While we share the goal of providing housing faster, we must not sacrifice the oversight process in doing so.
As-of-right would also give landowners the ability to remove already existing parking spaces without any due process, which is simply unacceptable to seniors who may come home to find out they are losing the parking spot they rely on.
The goal of reducing parking mandates in areas that the administration has deemed transit hubs is a serious concern, especially in my home borough of Queens, where transit options are limited. Many Queens residents are reliant on their cars and the ability to find parking.
These zones where people have somewhat better access to public transit and there is a focus on decreasing parking need a closer look - it is imperative that city agencies explain how they are going to invest in the infrastructure to account for denser populations. With the city's recent $2.5 billion investment in the MTA capital budget, plans to improve access in these areas need to be included. Simply living near mass transportation does not mean that the infrastructure is at the level it should be to make it a viable option.
We also need assurances that the allowance of a height increase on ground floors will be used for commercial purposes and developers will not be able to turn it into residential space. I would also like to see strategies from the city Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Small Business Services that will ensure the commercial space is used to stimulate economic development in our communities.
While these plans would have an effect on all New Yorkers, Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) will also have a major impact on seniors in neighborhoods across the city, whether in nursing homes or senior housing developments. The administration must show us that senior housing will contain quality apartments that are not unreasonably small. Seniors are the fabric of our communities and built the groundwork for everything we have today, so we should ensure that we are not limiting their ability to be active.
Due to the complexities of both MIH and ZQA, I am calling for two separate hearings since these plans each deserve their own time in front of the City Council before any final proposal is brought to chambers.
I commend the Department of City Planning for all its work to develop with these proposals and for traveling to communities across the city, and I give Mayor de Blasio and his administration credit for making the affordable housing crisis a priority. But, it is imperative that the final plan for zoning text amendments is the best it can be for all communities. In a city as large and diverse as New York, one size does not fit all.
[Related: Next Steps for The Mayor's Zoning Proposals]
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City Council Member Donovan Richards, chair of the Land Use Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, represents District 31 in Queens, which includes Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens and Far Rockaway. He is on Twitter @DRichards13.
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(photo via @NYPDnews)
How do we respond to people in our society who might appear threatening, but who most urgently need medical help? Shortcomings in our community health and social services systems mean that many people who live in poverty, use drugs, and live with mental illness end up in our justice system.
In too many cases, a police officer’s response to someone experiencing a psychotic break or self-medicating with drugs involves an arrest, which can lead these medically-vulnerable people into a cycle of arrest and incarceration. Many of the issues that both public health and law enforcement agencies address in the communities they serve are rooted in health inequities, violence, trauma, racism, and poverty—problems that are often exacerbated by a stay in jail.
Of course, police officers should not be responsible for identifying social and medical needs in their communities, but they often serve as de facto street-corner psychiatrists and social workers for the people they encounter.
This is because they are called to respond to low level infractions that stem from people’s behavioral health needs. For instance, of all drug-related arrests in 2013, 83 percent were for possession of a controlled substance. Nearly 10 percent of all police interactions involve people with a mental health disorder—an interaction that too often leads to injuries and fatalities. In fact, it’s been estimated that more than 70 percent of people with mental health disorders in the justice system also have a substance use disorder. Currently, police lack alternatives to arrest for responding to these problems—officers report that they are more likely to arrest somebody displaying signs of a behavioral health disorder if they believe jail is the only option to provide basic medical services for that individual.
As gatekeepers between the community and the criminal justice system, police need to have the tools to appropriately respond to people who need treatment or services that do not require arrest, especially considering the long-term, steep collateral costs of justice involvement on individuals, communities, and taxpayers that include housing instability, underemployment, and reduced economic mobility.
Harm reduction and health promotion, two bedrock principles of the modern public health field, can serve as guiding approaches for police looking to minimize the negative impacts that too many low-level arrests have had on our communities—especially those of color. Though these burdens arise from the failures of current community health, justice, and social services, police officers can and should be an asset to public health work.
In contrast to abstinence-based interventions, harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that aim to minimize the negative impacts of drug use and other high-risk behaviors, even when people are not ready or able to give up these behaviors. And health promotion is designed to help people increase control over, and improve, their health.
Jurisdictions around the world have demonstrated that police who are able to incorporate a public health approach can not only reduce arrests of these medically-vulnerable groups, but also improve the health of communities.
Harm reduction-based interventions that deliver vital services to people engaged in drug use or sex work, such as condom distribution programs, overdose prevention training, or syringe exchange sites, can reduce the spread of infectious disease and prevent overdose deaths. And programs that incorporate health promotion principles, like Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs)—which consist of specially trained teams of officers who answer emergency calls where mental illness might be an issue—can leverage police training to equip officers to implement a safer response to people in psychiatric crises.
To ensure that vulnerable people are not driven underground and away from the services that benefit them and improve the health of communities, police should work with existing syringe exchange programs and local harm reduction advocates when possible to build trust and develop collaborative policies. Several harm reduction programs in New York City—like those of BOOM!Health, VOCAL-New York, and Washington Heights CORNER Project—have successfully worked with law enforcement agencies to develop policies and practices that don’t target people who utilize their services and that actively improve the safety of these clients as well as that of their communities.
Law enforcement agencies have also had success by reaching out to advocacy groups to increase their officers’ knowledge about harm reduction. The Harm Reduction Coalition has worked with police around New York State in a collaboration that resulted in the NYPD adopting their training manual. In the first year of this partnership, more than 5,000 officers were trained in using Naloxone, a life-saving antidote that prevents death when administered to somebody overdosing on opiates.
Many jurisdictions have also created collaborative diversion programs, where police departments partner with local health departments and behavioral health service providers to develop pre-arrest and pre-booking diversion programs. San Antonio’s Smart Justice programs provide CITs and two different kinds of drop-off centers—a short term crisis center and a longer term psychiatric center—where police can bring people instead of arresting them. It’s promising to see that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s task force on behavioral health and criminal justice is adopting some of these strategies—the NYPD is increasing training for CITs and creating a drop-off center.
However, long-term impacts won’t be fully realized without an alignment of not only practices, but also metrics and incentives. Any review of police officers’ performance should include the number of their referrals to locally available community health and social services, metrics that reflect community perception and satisfaction with police encounters, and the number of lives saved through overdose prevention.
Arrests averted, rather than arrests made, should be a core guiding principle for police.
Additionally, health agencies, interventions, and professionals need to consider arrest and incarceration metrics of success for their programs in addition to more straightforward health outcomes.
Accessing public health services for people with substance use and mental health disorders should not require an interaction with law enforcement or a jail stay. Until alternatives are provided, police can draw on harm reduction and health promotion principles to most effectively ensure public safety for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable.
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Chelsea Davis is a Research Analyst in the Substance Use and Mental Health Program at the Vera Institute of Justice, and is co-author of its recent report, First Do No Harm: Advancing Public Health in Policing Practices.
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Here's the lead I wish I could write: "Corporate groups join government watchdogs to push for a New York State ethics overhaul." Fortunately, it's partly right - watchdog groups like NYPIRG and Citizens Union are certainly doing so. But some corporate groups are responding to the ethics mess in Albany, well, differently.
Consider the Dec. 2 op-ed "After Silver: Legal Reform is Ethics Reform" from the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York or "LRANY." This group has seized on the ethics crisis to promote an incongruous agenda. With 90 percent of New Yorkers rightly believing that state ethics laws are too weak, LRANY's response would be to weaken the legal rights of 99 percent of everyone who lives here.
A big LRANY priority, for example, is undermining New York's common-sense scaffolding safety law. Currently, New York's law ensures that owners and contractors are exclusively responsible for limiting hazards like unsound scaffolding, ladders, and other equipment, as well as flooring and elevators. LRANY's proposal would substantially weaken the obligations of owners and contractors to ensure a safe worksite. As someone who lives in New York City, with active renovation and high-rise construction everywhere, I think I can speak for most in saying: Albany, please do not weaken this safety law.
Another LRANY priority is a bill that would delay and deny justice to people suffering from lethal asbestos-related diseases. The asbestos industry covered up the dangers of asbestos for over 50 years, more than 3,000 Americans still die from asbestos diseases annually, and asbestos is still not banned in the United States. The Lawsuit Reform Alliance proposal would essentially allow the asbestos industry to delay and avoid cases until the victims are dead. As Elihu Inselbuch, from the corporate firm Caplin & Drysdale, testified in Congress, such legislation, "has nothing to do with reducing fraud; instead, it is a gift to the asbestos industry, which continues to try and avoid accountability and decrease compensation to the victims of its past wrongs." Nor is this a bill about "transparency." Nothing in this legislation would stop the asbestos industry's continuing practice of hiding where asbestos is present and was used, and demanding secrecy from victims when they settle cases, as they routinely do.
Speaking of sick and injured New Yorkers, LRANY is also focused on medical malpractice. Medical errors are now the third leading cause of death in the United States. In New York, we actually have some experience solving this problem. When the labor and delivery unit at NY Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center implemented a comprehensive obstetric patient safety program, not only were catastrophic errors dramatically reduced, but also compensation payments fell by 99.1 percent. I think most New Yorkers would agree that the best way to reduce claims and lawsuits is to reduce injuries and deaths.
Unfortunately, this message seems completely lost on the medical and insurance lobbies, including groups like LRANY. Their focus continues to be stripping away the legal rights of injured patients after they've been hurt. Indeed, New York State doctors and hospitals already benefit from more liability protections than virtually any other industry or profession in the state. More specifically, in the mid-1980s, New York enacted three out of four "medical liability reform" agenda items pushed by LRANY's corporate partner, the American Tort Reform Association, all of which harm patients.
These laws added to legal obstacles that New Yorkers already faced, which residents in most other states do not. They include an archaic "wrongful death" law dating from the 1800s that does not allow compensation for emotional hardship in loss of a child killed by medical malpractice; and a restrictive statute of limitations law that prevents claims involving latent injuries, like a cancer misdiagnosis. In June, a bill to change that discriminatory law passed the Assembly and would have been signed by the Governor had it not been blocked by Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, in cahoots with New York's powerful hospital lobby.
And that's not the only damage the hospital lobby has done recently. In 2011, New York became the only state in the nation to enact a law providing that, if a baby suffers a catastrophic brain-injury at birth due to a doctor's negligence, the at-fault hospital is largely off the hook. Even if a jury finds the medical team at fault and awards the family compensation, the child's family cannot receive most of these funds. Instead, they are forced to go to a state program to pay for the child's care. Moreover, by law these children are condemned to a lifetime of suboptimal Medicaid care for any necessary therapies, no matter what a jury says they need.
Meanwhile, New York State law does not force insurance companies to disclose even basic information to lawmakers or the public about what they actually pay in claims, allowing them to price-gouge policyholders with virtually no oversight or regulation. In fact, New York State is one of the least transparent states in the nation when it comes to the insurance industry and claims data. Even Texas has better disclosure laws than New York. The impact of this goes far beyond simply harming public confidence in city and state government and major institutions. This secrecy also has serious public safety implications, allowing groups like Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York to engage in fear-mongering, not facts.
What we do know is that New York is among the top states in the nation for physicians practicing in the "high-risk" specialties of OB/GYN and surgery. Last time NYPIRG examined this, New York State had the fourth highest number of OB/GYNs per capita in the country, second highest number of general surgeons, and the highest per capita number of surgical specialists.
Physician shortages that exist in New York's rural areas are longstanding and correlate to stagnating local economies and decreasing populations in those regions, not to insurance rates (which, in any event, are relatively low in those areas). LRANY claims in its article that "at least eight New York counties have no OBGYN services at all," suggesting that women and injured babies should give up even more of their legal rights as a result. When a lobby group made spurious allegations like this a few years ago, we decided to check the counties about which these claims were made. By making a few simple phone calls, we found that those counties indeed either had obstetricians practicing within the county or had obstetrical services available from doctors very nearby. The entire argument was bogus, not to mention unethical.
History is clear on one thing: taking away the rights of the most seriously injured New Yorkers has been and continues to be failed public policy. Our laws should hold accountable those who commit harm. And if insurance companies are engaged in price-gouging, the solution to that problem lies with the insurance industry and stricter insurance regulation and disclosure laws. Transparency and oversight are the only way to stop corporate lobbies from abusing their economic influence here, and promoting a legislative agenda that severely harms New Yorkers.
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Joanne Doroshow, Executive Director, Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School; on Twitter @centerjd.
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