Gotbaum featured speaker at IREM luncheon

New York City public advocate Betsy Gotbaum was the featured speaker at a recent luncheon of the Greater New York Chapter of the Institute of Real Estate Management. Her topic, "Wisely Developing New York for the Next Generation" was received with thunderous applause from the capacity crowd. A brief excerpt from Gotbaum's interesting and thought provoking speech - "New York City's population is predicted to climb from 8.2 million in 2006 to 9.1 million by 2030, nearly a million additional New Yorkers in just under 25 years. With so many people moving here, we have to be especially thoughtful about planning for growth. There is no doubt that Mayor Bloomberg has been a development-friendly mayor. And there's no doubt development done responsibly is a good thing for the city. Development brings jobs and ideally more affordable housing. It certainly brings vitality to a city. But development must be balanced, smart and safe. And development requires a vision. Like the vision just beginning to take shape across the country to build green. Green building is the future of development and we need to be doing as much of it as possible here. As I see it, there are 4 main issues with development right now in New York: 1. It is lacking vision. 2. Infrastructure improvements are not keeping pace with new development. 3. Too few New Yorkers are benefiting from it. 4. Individual buildings are being erected without proper regard for safety."