Executive Director of Borough Planning for the Division of Planning and Predevelopment

Job description

About the Agency: The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) oversees housing standards across all 3.7 million homes in New York City. As the nation’s largest municipal housing agency, HPD is responsible for building and preserving affordable housing, protecting tenants from harassment and displacement, and holding landlords accountable across the five boroughs. Under Commissioner Dina Levy and the Mamdani Administration, HPD is pursuing an ambitious housing agenda focused on the needs of New York’s tenants. With a broad set of tools including standards enforcement, tenant resources, and the creation of new affordable housing, HPD is committed to making New York City a more affordable place for renters and homeowners alike. Your Team: The Office of Neighborhood Strategies (ONS) is charged with ensuring that HPD’s development and preservation efforts are guided by meaningful community engagement and coordinated with public investments in infrastructure and services, as put forth in the Mayor’s Housing Plan. ONS is composed of two divisions and a cross-divisional unit reporting to the Associate Commissioner: - The Division of Planning and Predevelopment (P&P) is central to developing and managing HPD's housing production pipeline from project proposal phases through the land use review and entitlement process, to ensure that HPD's investments contribute to building strong, healthy, resilient neighborhoods in all five boroughs. The advertised position is a member of this division. - The Division of Neighborhood Development & Stabilization (ND&S) leads the agency's commitment to neighborhood planning and strategic preservation through engagement with tenants, landlords, community leaders, and neighborhood stakeholders as we work to enable strong and healthy neighborhoods anchored by affordable housing. - The Strategic Initiatives Unit (SIU) leads special ONS initiatives and provides essential technical, planning, and policy support to staff and the Deputy Commissioner of Neighborhood Strategies. Your Impact: As the Executive Director of Borough Planning, you will advance HPD’s affordable housing mission by providing strategic and technical expertise and guidance to borough planning units within ONS. You will help to advance the creation of HPD’s new construction pre-development pipeline resulting in the creation of thousands of homes, and new community and retail opportunities. The Executive Director of Borough Planning reports to the Assistant Commissioner for Planning and Predevelopment. This role will support the Mamdani Administration’s Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (“SPEED”) initiative, a sweeping set of reforms to deliver affordable housing faster across New York City. Your Role: The Executive Director of Borough Planning will oversee and manage four Borough Planning teams (~16 staff) to advance affordable housing and community development projects throughout the five boroughs. Primary roles include creation and maintenance of standard practices related to public engagement, ensuring affordable housing projects on City-owned land move expeditiously and efficiently through engagement and entitlements processes, intra- and inter-agency coordination, coaching and mentoring borough directors, and helping represent the agency in various aspects of projects, including in high-profile public-private planning and development processes, interagency initiatives, and in meetings with elected officials. Your Responsibilities: Under the supervision of the Assistant Commissioner for Planning and Predevelopment, the Executive Director of Borough Planning acts as a bridge between borough planning teams and ONS and agency leadership, helps institute and maintain standards across borough planning units, and provides coaching and mentorship to borough teams. Specifically, you will be expected to: Planning and Project Management - Work closely with borough directors in their review of HPD’s land use and other entitlement applications such as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP) and UDAAP applications. Ensure consistency and coach borough teams on best practices for producing materials prior to advancing them for review. - Coordinate with ED of Land Use and Resiliency planning to prioritize projects for review. - Help represent the borough teams in all aspects of large-scale planning and development projects, including neighborhood planning. - In collaboration with other teams, and Assistant Commissioner as appropriate, identify and elevate political, policy, and programmatic flags on borough team projects to ONS leadership and provide recommendations for resolution, and aid Assistant Commissioner in analyzing and troubleshooting persistent or complex policy, planning, or technical issues. - Collaborate with borough directors on strategy to successfully advance projects and across portfolios and advise Assistant Commissioner. - Collaborate and provide guidance on community outreach and engagement for public site approvals. - Assist units in triaging and advancing particularly complex and high-priority projects. Unit Operations - In consultation with ED of Land Use and Resiliency Policy, identify bottlenecks and pain points in borough team operations, help develop and implement process improvements and operational innovations to improve teams' efficiency and performance, and help define practices and standards and ensure consistency across borough teams. - Work with borough teams to prepare consistent public-facing materials and talking points. - Coordinate with other agencies and with other units and divisions within HPD, such as LUP, Resiliency, Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Office of Development regarding affordable housing projects and broader policy initiatives. - Help create standards for transition of projects from the RFP phase to borough teams, and from borough teams to the Office of Development to ensure projects are transitioning smoothly and consistently. Help track RFP commitments through project lifecycle. Team Management and Supervision - Define, manage, and track borough team priorities and work assignments. - Perform managerial duties, including meeting regularly with borough team directors to review and evaluate work, communicate priorities, and provide coaching. - Identify staffing needs and advocate for additional resources (staffing, funding, technology, etc.) to support team functioning - Oversee teams’ reporting structure and consider opportunities for professional growth and advancement. Preferred skills: - Subject-matter expertise: Knowledge of New York City government, affordable housing, land use, and urban planning issues. A minimum of eight years of professional experience in a related field; candidates with master’s degrees in urban planning, real estate development, public administration, public policy, or a related field are strongly preferred. - Project management, including the ability to execute: Proven ability to manage complex projects with multiple internal and external stakeholders; to receive direction and anticipate next steps; to think through, communicate, document, organize, and execute on project goals and keep other team members on schedule. Ability to manage up, down, and across teams. Attentive to details, organized, and demonstrated ability to follow through. - Analytical and technical expertise: Experience reviewing land use applications in New York City, knowledge of best practices in urban planning, affordable housing, real estate development, and land use policy. Ability to work with, understand, analyze, and communicate qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial information in a variety of formats. - People management: Experience managing teams and an interest in building staff development and coaching skills. - Problem-solving: The ability to combine analytic and technical planning skills with empathy and persuasion to break complex challenges into manageable tasks, generate consensus on contentious issues, and influence both subject-matter experts and senior-level decisionmakers. - Communication: Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. Proven ability to produce high-quality materials in a variety of formats for internal and external audiences. - Good judgment: Ability to analyze a situation, understand what is needed, understand when additional input is needed, flag or resolve issues as necessary, and escalate when appropriate. - Collaborative and creative spirit: Excited to be part of a team, to work with others to solve problems creatively, and get quality work done while protecting the City’s interests. Ability to hear, take, and give feedback effectively and productively and to motivate peers to get the job done. - Civil service: The candidate selected must be permanent in the City Planner Civil Service title or another qualifying Civil Service title OR be on the active City Planner Civil Service list or another qualifying Civil Service list to be eligible for this role. Selected candidates will be asked to provide written confirmation that they currently hold a relevant permanent title or are on a qualifying Civil Service list. Please submit a resume, cover letter, and proof of Civil Service eligibility with your application. Applications without cover letters will not be considered. CITY PLANNER - 22122 1. A master’s degree from an accredited college or university in city planning, urban planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, transportation engineering, public administration, economic development or a related field; or 2. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university and one year of satisfactory full-time experience in city planning such as in the review and development of housing, transportation, environmental, and city-owned land planning projects; or 3. A satisfactory combination of education and/or experience that is equivalent to "1" above. Graduate education in city planning, urban planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, transportation engineering, public administration, economic development or related fields may be substituted for experience on the basis of 30 graduate semester credits from an accredited college or university for one year of experience. However, all candidates must have a baccalaureate degree. 4. To be eligible for placement in Assignment Level III, individuals must have, after meeting the minimum requirements, two additional years of professional experience as described in "2" above. The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.