City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Welcome to City Limits’ NYC Housing Calendar, a weekly feature where we round up the latest housing and land use-related events and hearings, as well as upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.

Know of an event we should include in next week’s calendar? Email us.

Upcoming Housing and Land Use-Related Events:

Tuesday, May 21 at 8:15 a.m.: NYU’s Furman Center hosts “By the Numbers: The Use of Housing Choice Vouchers in NYC,” featuring a panel discussing and networking session. More here.

Tuesday, May 21 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings and Dispositions will meet on several landmarks applications, including the Tremont Branch of the NYPL in the Bronx. More here.

Tuesday, May 21 at 12 p.m.: The New York State Senate’s Cities 1 committee will meet on several bills related to building owners, including one to establish free legal services for certain small property owners and another to establish a property tax amnesty program. More here.

Tuesday, May 21 at 12 p.m.: The New York State Assembly’s housing committee will meet on several bills. More here.

Wednesday, May 22 at 11 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet. More here.

Wednesday, May 22 at 12 p.m.: The NYC Council’s Land Use Committee will vote on the mayor’s proposed City of Yes for Economic Opportunity, which affects zoning rules related to storefronts and commercial spaces. More here.

Thursday, May 23 at 9:30 a.m.: The NYC Rent Guidelines Board will meet. More here.

Thursday, May 23 at 6 p.m.: Tenants & Neighbors will hold an information session on rent freeze programs for older New Yorkers and those with disabilities. More here.

Thursday, May 23 at 10 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings will vote on several bills related to requirements for inspecting and regulating parking garages. More here.

Thursday, May 23 at 10:30 a.m.: The NYC Council’s Committee on Economic Development will vote on a bill requiring the city’s Economic Development Corp. to publish an annual report on the redevelopment of JFK Airport and impact on nearby communities. More here.

NYC Affordable Housing Lotteries Ending Soon: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) are closing lotteries on the following subsidized buildings over the next week.

3633 Kingsbridge Avenue Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $109,715 – $181,740

69 Adams Street Apartments, Brooklyn, for households earning between $105,223 – $218,010

3745 Riverdale Ave Apartments, Bronx, for households earning between $92,572 – $218,010

By JOSEF FEDERMAN (Associated Press)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war.

While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

Khan accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

A panel of three judges will consider the prosecutor’s evidence and determine whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead in Gaza, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the chief prosecutor’s decision against its leaders is “a historic disgrace that will be remembered forever.” He said he would work with world leaders to ensure that any such warrants are not enforced on Israel’s leaders.

Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the West, also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s request to arrests its leaders.

Benny Gantz, a former military chief and member of Israel’s War Cabinet with Netanyahu and Gallant, harshly criticized Khan’s announcement, saying Israel fights with “one of the strictest” moral codes, respects international law and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself.

“The State of Israel is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on the 7th of October,” he said.

Still, Netanyahu has come under heavy pressure at home to end the war sooner than later. Thousands of Israelis have joined weekly demonstrations calling on the government to reach a deal to bring home Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity.

In recent days, the two other members of his war Cabinet, Gallant and Benny Gantz, have threatened to resign if Netanyahu does not spell out a clear postwar vision for Gaza.

But on Monday, Netanyahu received wall-to-wall support as politicians across the spectrum condemned the ICC prosecutor’s move, including opposition leader Yair Lapid.

In a statement, Hamas accused the prosecutor of trying to “equate the victim with the executioner.” It said it has the right to resist Israeli occupation, including “armed resistance.”

It also criticized the court for seeking the arrests of only two Israeli leaders and said it should seek warrants for other Israeli leaders.

Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.

The latest war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, when terrorists from Gaza crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.

Since then, Israel has waged a brutal campaign to dismantle Hamas in Gaza. More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting, at least half of them women and children, according to the latest estimates by Gaza health officials.

The war has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80% of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to U.N. officials.

Speaking of the Israeli actions, Khan said in a statement that “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known. … They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women.”

The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries throughout the war. Israel denies this, saying there are no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and accusing the U.N. of failing to distribute aid.

The U.N. says aid workers have repeatedly come under Israeli fire, and also says ongoing fighting and a security vacuum have impeded deliveries.

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Of the Hamas actions on Oct. 7, Khan, who visited the region in December, said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”

After a brief period of international support, Israel has faced increasing criticism as the war has dragged on and the death toll has climbed.

Israel is also facing a South African case in the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s top court, accusing Israel of genocide. Israel denies those charges.

The ICC was established in 2002 as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.

The U.N. General Assembly endorsed the ICC, but the court is independent.

Dozens of countries don’t accept the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and other crimes. They include Israel, the United States, Russia and China.

The ICC becomes involved when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute crimes on their territory. Israel argues it has a functioning court system.

The ICC accepted “The State of Palestine” as a member in 2015, a year after the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction.

The court’s chief prosecutor at the time announced in 2021 she was opening an investigation into possible crimes on Palestinian territory. Israel often levies accusations of bias at U.N. and international bodies, and Netanyahu condemned the decision as hypocritical and antisemitic.

In 2020, then U.S. President Donald Trump authorized economic and travel sanctions on the ICC prosecutor and another senior prosecutor. The ICC staff were looking into U.S. and allies’ troops for possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

U.S. President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions in 2021.

Last year, the court issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Russia responded by issuing its own arrest warrants for Khan and ICC judges.

Other high-profile leaders charged by the court include ousted Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir on allegations that include genocide in his country’s Darfur region. Former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebels shortly after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest on charges linked to the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in 2011.

Molly Quell in Delft, Netherlands, and Mike Corder in Ede, Netherlands, contributed.

Twice, my daughters have confronted the stark reality of guns in Uvalde schools. 

First, my youngest daughter, Lexi, faced a deranged 18-year-old armed with an AR-15-style rifle as he murdered 19 students and two teachers while police lingered in the school’s hallway. Lexi, forever 10 years old, was one of those fourth graders who never came home from Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022. Two years later, in February of this year, my middle daughter, Jahleela, who is 13, was unknowingly in a classroom with a student who had brought a handgun to Morales Junior High. The student had plans to sell the weapon to a peer. In this case, other students reported his actions, and everyone left campus unharmed.

This is Uvalde, post-May 24.

Top: Gloria Cazares and her husband Javier, who lost their daughter Jackie, weep in celebration with other Uvalde families after a Texas House committee passes the “raise-the-age” bill, which later failed to become law. Bottom Left: Uvalde families led by Brett Cross (R), uncle and guardian of Uziyah Garcia, and Mack Segovia, stepfather of Eliahna Torres, carry a Day of the Dead altar in 2022. Bottom Right: (Left to right) Manuel Rizo, Berlinda Arreola, Kimberly Garcia, and Felicha Martinez—who respectively lost their niece, granddaughter, daughter, and son—stand together last May in the Texas Capitol.

I am the mother of a mass-shooting victim. That concept, which still looks foreign to me as I read it back to myself, reminds me of my time as a reporter in Uvalde—before 2022. It was May 2019 when Uvalde Memorial Hospital secured Sue Klebold, mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold, to be the keynote speaker at its “Healthy Minds Matter” event. The hospital asked that I interview her in my capacity as a journalist for the Uvalde Leader-News to publicize the event. During our conversation, in which she advocated for mental health resources, Sue said, “I am the mother of a killer.” Those words had such a chilling effect on me that I used them as the headline for the story, which appeared on the front page. Five years later, I describe myself as the mother of a mass-shooting victim, and I advocate daily for stronger gun control.

Two weeks after I lost Lexi, and three days before her funeral, I agreed to testify before Congress about the effects of gun violence. I don’t recall making a conscious decision to actively join the gun violence prevention movement, but, looking back, I’ve always been a member. I have always prioritized children over some civilians’ desire to own high-powered weapons of war. On the heels of other mass shootings, some of which I wrote about for the Uvalde paper, I vocalized my beliefs with friends, local law enforcement members, and other officials. Now I am a passionate, deliberate advocate for preventing gun violence. As we’ve seen in Uvalde, gun violence is an epidemic. It is spreading across our country at a rate we are unable to contain. 

Kimberly and Felix share a quiet moment in between meetings with state lawmakers in Austin last February.

Just this April, my youngest child, 10-year-old Julian—a fourth grader just like Lexi was before that gun-wielding Uvalde High School dropout shattered our family—saw bullets in his elementary school classroom. That day, I was on my lunch break from the newspaper, where I now work in advertising, when I received a call from Uvalde Elementary, the temporary campus for students who would have been at Robb Elementary if not for May 24, 2022. The administrator sounded hesitant before she informed me that Julian’s classmate brought bullets to school. He showed them to Julian and two other classmates, who told their teacher. The school district released yet another notice to parents, promising appropriate repercussions for the child who brought ammunition to school for a private show-and-tell.

This is Uvalde, post-May 24. 

Left: Javier Cazares remembers his daughter, Jackie, in her bedroom one month after the school shooting that took her life. Right: Ana Rodriguez kisses the urn containing her daughter Maite’s ashes.

After hanging up the phone, I sobbed at my kitchen table. My oldest child, 19-year-old Kalisa, tried to comfort me. Now, as I write this, sitting alone in a hotel room after yet another gun violence prevention conference, I wonder how to keep going. What more do I have to offer when I feel so empty? I think about the conversation I had with Julian when he came home that day. “My friend shouldn’t have brought bullets to school, but it’s also his parents’ fault,” he said. “They should have them put away.”

What if that child had found a gun, instead? How close did I come to losing my son in the same manner, at the same age, as his sister? We are all one “What if?” away from devastation by gun violence. Those of us who have already lost so much are not immune to losing more. So I keep fighting. For Lexi, for my other children, for all children. 

Ten-year-old Uziyah Garcia’s math notebook was struck by a bullet during the shooting. He was among the 19 children killed.

As we’ve seen in Uvalde—along with Columbine, Parkland, and so many other places in America—you cannot leave the protection of children in the hands of law enforcement. Uvalde’s response was delayed by a minimum of 77 minutes and perhaps even years: In 2018, two Morales Junior High School students, who may have been loosely connected to the Robb Elementary shooter, planned a mass casualty event for April 20, 2022. That was the year they would graduate from high school, and April 20 had been the date of the 1999 Columbine massacre. The two students then changed plans, moving the date up to 2018, but one got cold feet and told an adult. As a reporter then, I remember writing that story, pushing aside my own what-ifs. At the time, Kalisa was in their eighth-grade class. 

Top Left: Friends and family of Eliahna Torres celebrate what would have been her 11th birthday last January. Bottom Left: The Rubios spend time at Lexi’s grave last April after what would have been Makenna Elrod Seiler’s 11th birthday. Right: Veronica Silguero closes her eyes at a celebration of what would have been her daughter Jailah’s 12th birthday last September.

People often talk about how a mother is born when she gives birth, but no one discusses the death of that mother when she buries her child. One day, Lexi was here, and I was whole. The next, I was completely broken. 

I marched, rallied, met with U.S. and state politicians. I flew to D.C., Florida, California, Chicago, and Massachusetts. Last year, my husband Felix and I, along with other families affected by mass shootings, spent months advocating at the Texas Capitol for House Bill 2744, which would have raised the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic guns from 18 to 21. Had this bill been law in 2022, the gunman would not have been able to legally purchase the AR-15-style weapon he used to murder my daughter. The state House Select Committee on Community Safety passed the bill 8-5, but it ultimately died without a vote from the full House.

Caitlyne Gonzalez, who survived the Robb shooting, dances to Taylor Swift at her best friend Jackie’s grave.

Now, as we prepare for next year’s legislative session, people ask me where I find the strength. It’s not strength but determination. As it was in those muddled days after May 24 when I agreed to testify before Congress, it’s not a choice but an expression of my love for Lexi. She is not physically here to hold, to kiss, to raise. I can only honor her by working to save lives and prevent more heartache.

Top Left: Lexi’s younger brother, Julian, picks sunflowers. Top Right: Ana Rodriguez kisses her son Darnell as she drops him off at school a little over a year after the shooting. Bottom Left: Jerry Mata, who lost his daughter Tess, watches this year’s solar eclipse near Tess’ grave. Bottom Right: Last September, Kimberly Mata-Rubio announces her run for Uvalde mayor, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

In post-May 24 Uvalde, two of my surviving children have had to deal with peers callously bringing weapons and ammunition to class despite the recent loss of 21 lives, including Lexi’s. Every time there is a lockdown, do my kids wonder if they’ll make it home? Do they wonder if they’ll get home to find they’ve lost another sibling?

This April, Kimberly Mata-Rubio reads a bedtime story to her son Julian, now 10.