community. Thank you, Gersh kuntzman, my name is Gersh kuntzman. It's great to see all my neighbors out here. I'm a little bit on the other side here. A lot of people know me as a journalist, but I've been covering this city for about 40 years, meetings like this, and I wanted to give you a brief perspective. I also do address what someone said earlier. I'm not with Open New York. I do live in the neighborhood. I've lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years, and I'm actually living in the neighborhood as a renter who is being priced out and actually looking for an apartment, unfortunately in another neighborhood because I can't afford this one. The only reason I came today is just to urge the members of the community board seven to vote yes for this project at the risk of being booed by my very neighbors, whom I all love and love to see here, I know you're going to hear a lot of negative things about the project, and that's great, too, but I'm here just to say, Please vote yes. As a journalist, for the last 35 years, I covered a lot of meetings like this, and there's some common threads in meetings like this. You always hear of a white knight developer who could do a project of 100% affordability at a lower density, et cetera, et cetera. Well, someone said, mention the 60s. I remember John Leonard who said, We'd love a revolution, but I'd like to see the plan. If the plan was here, we would be debating that plan. So that's one thing. Number two is, you often hear about gentrification, that these projects are instant gentrification, but as someone much more intelligent than I said earlier, that's not the case in this neighborhood. This neighborhood has an affordability crisis. I'm living proof of it, because in a couple of months, you'll see me living somewhere in Bushwick or in Sunset Park or somewhere maybe not even in the city, and I'm not looking for your sympathy. I'm just here to say in my remaining minute that I urge the board to vote yes on this project, because I think we need more housing, as you've heard from very intelligent people, many of whom, if not all, of whom live in the neighborhood. However, since I have a minute or two left. A second or two left, I would like to say I'm enjoying hearing from my other neighbors who opposed the project, because I'd like I'm hearing their rationale, and I'm saying to my fellow members of the Not My fellow members, members of the board, that I don't think your rationale holds up to what I'm hearing from the other side. That's all I'd like to say. Please vote yes. Boo.
