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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 137-07
May 6, 2007

MAYOR BLOOMBERG DISCUSSES LANDMARK REVISIONS TO CITY CONSTRUCTION CODES AND THE REVITALIZATION OF WILLETS POINT IN WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS

The following is the text of Mayor Bloomberg's weekly radio address as prepared for delivery on 1010 WINS News Radio for Sunday, May 6, 2007

"Good Morning. This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

"Over the past five years, we've been building a future for New York City that doesn't just preserve our quality of life, but actually improves it. And that's really the idea at the heart of PlaNYC, our recent effort to make New York the nation's first truly sustainable 21st century city. The key to achieving that goal is to invest in strategies that promote our economy and preserve our environment. Last week, we launched two efforts that will help us realize those objectives.

"On Thursday, after four years of study and public outreach, we proposed a major revision of the City's Building Code, which had not been revised in almost 40 years. Our proposal will make constructing buildings less expensive, safer, and greener, and it will replace outdated regulations that are unnecessarily complex and often lead to avoidable delays. In construction, time is money, so anything we can do to standardize and streamline the process for architects and engineers will help cut down on costs, which will help lower costs for housing and office space.

"Our new NYC Construction Codes will also make our buildings more secure. The lessons we have learned from the past - including lessons from the terrible destruction of the World Trade Center - will help make our city safer in the future. That's why the new NYC Construction Codes require the installation of impact- resistant stairways and elevator shafts in new residential as well as commercial high-rises. It also calls for hard-wired, interconnected smoke detectors in all new residential units, wider used of sprinklers in new residences, and greater in-house water reserves for firefighting purposes in high-rise buildings.

"Finally, the new Code will facilitate "greener" building and help us to reduce our city's greenhouse gas emissions. It will require new buildings to install more modern and efficient heating, cooling, and ventilation systems…and will also offer fee rebates for the use of renewable energy, water conservation, and recycling of construction and demolition waste.

"All of these revisions to the Construction Code will help guide the second important effort we launched last week: The creation of the city's first truly "green" community at Willets Point. On Wednesday, we presented a master plan for turning this long blighted and contaminated area of Queens into a dynamic center of economic activity and recreation.

"Our plan for the area includes a vibrant mix of retail and entertainment facilities: Office space, a new school, a hotel, new housing and a convention center - the city's first outside of Manhattan.

"We expect the project will create some 20,000 construction jobs, more than 6,000 new permanent jobs, and produce an economic impact of $1.5 billion over 30 years. What's more, the playgrounds and green spaces we'll develop at Willets Point will help us fulfill an important goal of PlaNYC- ensuring that all New Yorkers live within a 10-minute walk of a park.

"The project at Willets Point, along with the revisions to our Construction Code, will put us on course to create a greener, greater New York by the year 2030. Right now, we're in the midst of a remarkable building boom. This unprecedented period of growth has afforded us an historic opportunity to look ahead, and build the kind of city we'll be proud to turn over to our children.

"This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Thanks for listening."







MEDIA CONTACT:


Stu Loeser   (212) 788-2958




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