Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Major Progress on 583 Affordable Apartments and Community Services in East Flatbush as Part of the State’s[...]

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced major progress on the state's Vital Brooklyn Initiative with the completion of Utica Crescent and the start of construction at Sparrow Square, which together will deliver 583 new affordable residential units in East Flatbush. The $1.4 billion Vital Brooklyn Initiative is a comprehensive community development program to address social, economic, and health disparities in Central Brooklyn neighborhoods, some of the most chronically underserved areas of the State. Utica Crescent and Sparrow Square build on the completion of other Vital Brooklyn milestones the Governor has announced including The Rise in Brownsville, Alafia Phase One in East New York, and Herkimer Gardens in Bedford Stuyvesant. With the completion of Utica Crescent and the groundbreaking of Sparrow Square, more than 2,500 homes are completed or under construction under the Vital Brooklyn Initiative.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you so much, great to be here back in Brooklyn again. I spent a lot of time here. Isn't this an extraordinary time to be a New Yorker? Are you just feeling the love, the energy, the envy of the rest of the country. It's not just the Knicks, although it's a large part of it - but I just feel people know there's something special going on here. And we took such a beating, especially Brooklyn and this part of Brooklyn during the pandemic. And it just took a long time for us to get that mojo back when we had developers and elected officials, and people would never stop believing that they could continue through these difficult times and still chart a path forward to do something that I think is so essential, and that is to build more housing. And when I first became the Governor I said, "we have failed in the ambition to just build for more affordable housing around the state to give people the dignity of a home." To give them what I just saw with Geraldine upstairs when she introduced me to her 15 year old daughter and her son's room, who's 13.

Geraldine told me that she had been waiting for 17 years on lists to try and get her own home like this. A beautiful woman and she's done having to wait anymore. And the joy in her face of the home that she created for herself and her children was the reason we do this. This is why many of us get up in the morning to make a difference in the lives of others, and let them know they matter, that they have dignity, that they have rights and they deserve this. So I'm really proud to be here with Dr. Sandra Scott, the CEO of One Brooklyn Health. Dr. Scott, thank you. An incredible leader who has to deal with a lot of challenges this woman but she is tough. She's my role model for dealing with a lot of stuff out there. And you also have extraordinary elected officials here who are real champions for projects like this in their district. And I want to give a special shout out to Assemblymembers, Brian Cunningham, who's here with his little guy right now. So Assemblyman Brian Cunningham and Monique Chandler Waterman, who worked so hard on this project, making everybody do meetings with the community and just nonstop persistence and it got done. And I want to thank her and Kirk Goodrich, the president of the development company who did this. Chris Bramwell, and also JL James, managing director. Is RuthAnne Visnauskas here? She's not okay. I didn't know if she was here because we just left another project where we're building a thousand units only a few minutes from here, as part of our Vital Brooklyn initiative. 1000 units, starting with the first phase, 261 and that was not as much fun as this, because this was a ribbon cutting and that was a groundbreaking. So we got a little more time. But RuthAnn has been an incredible champion for executing on my vision to build more housing around the entire state.

So Utica Crescent is really a model of what I'm looking for. It takes a former parking lot, does anybody miss the parking lot? No. What do you need it for? Well, some of you might be missing the parking spots. Sorry about that, sorry about that. You can blame all these other people. I would have left you one spot for sure okay sweetheart. But bringing a parking lot to new life. This is what I'm talking about, transforming communities and it's happening right before our eyes. So this is a great day in central Brooklyn. This is 322 affordable housing units, which is incredible. But also it's so much better if we take care of people with needs on site and have services for our senior citizens right here, so they don't have to go out in the heat of the cold and deal with all sorts of burdens and struggles. So we're going to be doing that, a wellness and health center. Everybody has been working out in the gym who lives here? I'm going to be checking out okay, checking out the armor. A grocery store - is it all here or is it coming? It's all done. Okay, I need some groceries. I'm just checking because my kitchen is so bare, my kitchen is so bare. But also, this is exactly what we set forth with Vital Brooklyn and it's to deal with the disparities in health outcomes and job opportunities and socioeconomic opportunities. And so this is how we start chipping away at a real challenge that has been there and forgotten for so long. In fact, we've invested over $2 billion in housing here in Brooklyn alone. 11,000 units here in Brooklyn alone since I've been Governor. That's what I call progress, that is a commitment. So I want to thank everyone here, but I also just remind everyone, we've done this in a lot of places but there are regulations that working with my partners in the legislature that we now have said no longer. No longer will SEQRA, which is a state environmental review which is important, will always protect the environment, full stop.But when that was passed back in 1975, so many changes happened as other laws that address the same environmental concerns and we make sure that they're enforced absolutely. But to know that it took two years longer for every single project to go through the reviews. I'm not talking about construction, I'm talking about before you even got to construct two extra years for projects like this just to get the approvals they need. That is why we have been stymied in our growth.

We have the vision, we have the resources, we have the talent. But also we did not have the luxury of time, we did not want to wait any longer. So you take away two years. Also the additional cost. We estimated that it's $82,000 more per unit to build to comply with New York State laws, and I'm seeing people shake their heads. Guess what, that is gone - that is gone. This is how we put building on steroids now, which is what I want to see happening over the next four, five, six years to make up for a lot of lost time.

So this project makes me so happy, especially when I walk through the halls and have a chance to say hello to the people who feel like they hit the jackpot. Have a chance to live in a safe place and know that their kids are going to be secure and that their children will have better outcomes in life because their parents, their mom, particularly here, was able to show them the path of what it looks like when someone knows that you have value and they all have value in my eyes and all of yours as well.

So thank you for making the magic happen here. I'm really happy, I'm not sure if we're cutting a ribbon or going to take a nice picture. I think the ribbon might be stuck in traffic I heard. I've heard all the excuses, I never heard a ribbon complaining about staying stuck in traffic? But I'll accept it, it's Brooklyn so anything goes right.

Thank you everyone and congratulations.