The exchange was included in a 19-page memo filed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. | Getty De Blasio official calls Council members 'not that smart' in affordable housing deposition

A top City Hall official referred to City Council members as "not that smart" in a deposition for a lawsuit challenging the city's longstanding affordable housing lottery policy.

Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, offered an unflattering critique of the legislative body when she was deposed last November as part of an ongoing legal challenge to the "community preference" practice of reserving 50 percent of city-subsidized housing in a given area to residents of the same community district.


"Asked about whether she had ever left a meeting with a [council member] about a project or a rezoning or other step to facilitate affordable housing with the view that the CM she was speaking to was ill-informed in any way, Deputy Mayor Glen said, 'They’re council people. Of course,'" according to a transcript of the exchange provided in court papers filed Friday.

The city is arguing that attorneys for the plaintiffs — three African-American women who applied for affordable housing through the city lottery — should not get to depose Council members or force them to turn over information to bolster their case that the policy furthers racial segregation.

"I’m really asking you what kinds of things were they ill-informed about. I’m just going to give you an example. Like what the provisions of 421-a are, basic principles of housing finance," one of the plaintiffs' attorneys asked, according to the transcript.

"All of the above. They are often extremely confused and ill-informed and not that smart," Glen replied.

"Okay. So it sounds, from your answer, that to delineate each area would take a very long — " the attorney began.

"I think we would be here for a month if you wanted a list of every time a city councilperson didn’t understand what was going on in a particular project or a rezoning," Glen said, before the attorney could finish the question, according to the transcript.

The exchange was included in a 19-page memo filed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. The attorneys are arguing against a prior judge's decision to back up the de Blasio administration in blocking them from accessing six Council members.

They are looking to depose Ritchie Torres of the Bronx and Rafael Espinal of Brooklyn and are seeking further information from four others — Robert Cornegy, Laurie Cumbo and Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn as well as former Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito of East Harlem and the Bronx.

Craig Gurian, one of the attorneys, said lawyers selected the six members based on public positions they've taken on the issue of race and housing and projects in their districts.

"Assuming … that not all CMs want to maintain the residential racial status quo (and, to be clear, plaintiffs do not believe that all CMs hold such views), it may well be the case that questioning a CM could uncover the fact that one of the less discriminatory alternatives available to defendant is to educate CMs as to the pernicious consequences of racial segregation," Gurian wrote in the legal memo.

He said the community preference policy, which he refers to as the practice of "outsider restriction," perpetuates segregation by creating a barrier for nonwhite residents to move into new neighborhoods while allowing white New Yorkers to remain in theirs.

"These racial patterns were not some free choice that everybody made," he said in an interview. "They are a result of decades of intentional discrimination and segregation so to say, 'Okay, we're just going to accept the way things are as the natural state of affairs' is crazy."

A fairer policy, he said, would be to give everyone who is economically eligible for affordable housing in New York City an equal shot at every available unit through the lottery.

Glen apologized Monday in a statement.

"Certainly I apologize," she said. "I'm proud of what my team and Council Members have accomplished together, and I respect their role and perspective."

"If anything is 'ill-informed' and 'not that smart' it's taking a cheap shot at the same City Council that has always treated Deputy Mayor Glen and the entire administration with courtesy and respect. Deputy Mayor Glen should apologize," Robin Levine, a spokeswoman for Council Speaker Corey Johnson, said in an email.

Much of the tension stems from the Council blocking at least half a dozen controversial land use projects across the city during de Blasio's first term because they felt the deals didn't provide enough affordable housing and allowed too much density. City officials often felt members were kowtowing to community backlash, even though they had approved sweeping changes to the city's affordable housing policy.

The Council is the final stop for any developer looking to repurpose land, giving the legislative body substantial leverage over de Blasio's well-underway plan to build and preserve 300,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing over 12 years.

Gurian argued Council members should be made available because of that charter-mandated role in the land use process — something city officials have cited in defending the community preference policy.

City officials declined to comment on the policy itself, which they have been defending since the lawsuit was filed in July of 2015.