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

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.

B-ROLL of the Sparrow Square Groundbreaking can be found on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format.

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:

How great is it to be a New Yorker these days? Oh my God, it's incredible. I was just talking about this and gosh, we lived long enough to see the Knicks win the championship. Yeah. Life is good. Let's see the Bills next year in the Super Bowl. Don't laugh. Don't laugh.

I'm really happy to be here with Brenda. Thank you for all you do at Breaking Ground. Your organization gives hope to so many people that they'll have a chance at the dignity of a beautiful home. At Douglaston Development, you can't find better people to build homes for people, and I thank all of their leadership, Jeff Levine and everyone else.

You're represented by one of my closest allies and a strong fighter for this district up in Albany. Let's give a round of applause to our Assembly Member, Brian Cunningham, once again, always here, always showing up for his community. And I have the dream team in building projects like this. RuthAnne Visnauskas is legendary across this nation. I want to thank her for everything she does at Homes and Community Renewal. I have Dr. Ann Marie Sullivan who has been leading the charge to bring mental health services to people all over the state, helping spend the $2 billion we've invested in mental health. And so thank you, Dr. Sullivan.

We have our deputy mayors, New York City Deputy Mayor Bozorg and Deputy Mayor Landaverde. I want to thank them for their representation of City Hall once again, and our Mayor, and also to all of you for coming on this great day. It's beautiful out. It's not even hot. No humidity. It's perfect.

So this project - the reason I want to come out here, and when I leave, believe it or not, I'm going to another housing project in Brooklyn funded by HCR and supported by all of us because things are finally happening. When I first became Governor, I declared that we have to stop this era of people just saying "no" to housing. Because of that lack of ambition, that failure to break down barriers and to stand up to NIMBYs, we were not building enough housing for our residents, those who need supportive housing, and anybody who just wants to live in a home they can afford. And people are going elsewhere because of this. We're losing Black and brown middle class families going to other states. Young people getting out of college or starting their career could not even live in the communities they were raised in, and we had to put an end to that. Working with my team and RuthAnne, we developed a $25 billion affordable housing package to build 100,000 units across the state of New York. And my friends, we are now ahead of schedule, and projects like this with 1,000 units are all part of that strategy. So it's happening. It's happening.

Also, you look at this as the site of a project that had a different history to it. And to be able to convert land that had been used for other purposes, the psychiatric center and the asylum for many years, to be able to be a place that is going to be welcoming. Let people know, this is what I love about going to these projects. When I can open someone's door for them and welcome them home, you see in their faces that they know they matter. And that is what happens when people are cast aside. They don't feel welcomed by society because of their circumstances.

People sometimes just need a little extra help in life, and this home gives them a purpose. It gives them security. It gives them the sense of dignity that is sometimes so overlooked when we don't take care of people and their families. So I believe in this project. We are going to be continuing to work on this and many others.

I think we're in for about $240 million, RuthAnne, somewhere in that range? That's pretty darn good. Let's give that a round of applause. But this is all part of Vital Brooklyn. We've built over 11,000 housing units in Brooklyn, $2 billion since I've been governor alone, and we're just getting started. So I'm looking forward to this project. I'm also heading over to Utica Avenue for a project there. But I also want to say this. We also had to challenge the Legislature to help us do what's right when it comes to the laws that were holding back development. Why it was taking two years longer to do housing developments, to follow and comply with the SEQRA laws that are already being - they're redundant. These reviews are already happening. So we will literally save $82,000 for our developers in the projects and people like Breaking Ground, $82,000 in savings per unit that is built in the City of New York. That's how we start incentivizing more housing to be built, make it more affordable, cut down on all the long delays, and I'm really proud that working with Brian Cunningham, we were able to get that done.

So I will take on any fight because nothing will get in my way to fulfill the dream that I have as someone whose parents used to live in a trailer park. That reminds you that you can always look back where you came from and realize how fortunate we are, but also there are people still living in that trailer park. And those are the people I fight for every day, the people who never had that fair shot in life. And I'm there with all of you to give that to these individuals who need supportive services, who need our help. And that's what government is all about, to be there to help people when they need us the most.

Thank you very much, everyone. Let's continue on. I look forward to the ribbon cutting.