Kathryn Garcia tells real estate group she’ll crack down on graffiti, dirt bikes
Mayoral hopeful Kathryn Garcia made a well-received pitch to the city’s largest real estate lobby group — telling developers and owners the city needs to make it “easier” to build in the city and vowing to crack down on quality-of-life nuisances.
“New York City needs to make it easier to build in the city, period,” Garcia said Wednesday during a Real Estate Board of New York webinar.
“Whether or not that’s approvals through the ULURP process, or getting permits through the Department of Buildings and then finally getting a Certificate of Occupancy, we need to just make it easier to build.”
Garcia — who’s running a close third behind Eric Adams and Andrew Yang, according to recent polls — told the REBNY audience that she was bothered by a recent increase of noisy dirt bikes racing across the five boroughs, as well as a perceived uptick in graffiti.
Garcia pledged to increase traffic enforcement if elected mayor — and to wash away paint from buildings.
“The racing motorbikes all over the city? I’ve never seen this before,” said Garcia. “No one knows where they came from!”
Garcia’s REBNY audition went over well, said one real estate source who was watching.
“I thought she was great on substance,” said the source. “She provided meaningful, substantive answers.”
The real estate insider noted that she spoke to the need for the city to build more housing, and preemptively spoke to various parochial concerns many homeowners and commercial real estate owners have expressed.
“It’s clear that she has a handle and grasp of the different quality-of-life issues that different communities face,” said the source.
The Democratic primary will held on June 22, with early voting beginning Saturday
