Director of Land Use and Policy for the Division of Planning and Predevelopment

City of New York•New York City, NY

About The Position

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. 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 Associate Commissioner of Neighborhood Strategies. As the Director of Land Use and Policy (“LUP”) for the Division of Planning and Predevelopment, you will advance HPD’s affordable housing mission by providing strategic and technical expertise and guidance to units within ONS and divisions across the agency. 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 Director of Land Use and Policy reports to the Executive Director of Land Use and Resiliency Policy.

Requirements

A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university and two years of satisfactory full-time experience in city planning; or
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 for one year of experience. However, all candidates must have a baccalaureate degree.
To be eligible for placement in Assignment Level III, individuals must have, after meeting the minimum requirements, one additional year of professional experience as described in "2" above.
To be eligible for placement in Assignment Level IV, individuals must have, after meeting the minimum requirements, two additional years of professional experience as described in "2" above.
The candidate selected for the Director of Land Use and Policy 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.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of New York City government, affordable housing, land use, and urban planning issues.
A minimum of six 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.
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.
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.
Experience managing teams and an interest in building staff development and coaching skills.
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 decision-makers.
Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. Proven ability to produce high-quality materials in a variety of formats for internal and external audiences.
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.
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.

Responsibilities

Final substantive 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.
Oversight of HPD’s inventory of vacant land and buildings to assess development opportunities;
Proactively ensure compliance with requirements of Local Laws 30 and 40 of 2018 and Local Law 125 of 2024, including due diligence research into HPD’s inventory of vacant land to assess development opportunities and the status of affordable housing projects on City-owned land.
Supervise mapping projects by the GIS Technician and all other data and reporting projects.
Represent the LUP team in all aspects of large-scale planning and development projects.
Coordinate with the Resiliency unit to identify opportunities to make HPD projects more resilient and sustainable.
Supervise and support the Land Use Manager in administrative oversight tasks including, but not limited to reviewing requests for license agreements, remedying unauthorized uses of HPD land.
Perform and or/supervise the creation of reports about technical analyses of sites that require advanced understanding of zoning, land use, and general planning principles.
Work with the Executive Director in coordinating with other HPD units and other City agencies on strategic policy initiatives involving but not limited to the use of city owned property, building and site design, and sustainability.
Create new procedures to improve efficiency and efficacy of HPD Planning processes and procedures.
Work with the Resiliency unit to advance ONS’ Social Resiliency initiative.
Coordinate independently with other agencies and with other units and divisions within HPD, such as Borough Planning, Resiliency, Intergovernmental Affairs, Legal Affairs, and the Development regarding affordable housing projects and broader policy initiatives.
Define, manage, and track team priorities and work assignments.
Meet regularly with individual staff members, as well as the entire team to review and evaluate work, communicate priorities, and provide coaching.
Identify staffing needs and advocate for resources.