Senior Environmental Planner

City of New York•New York City, NY

1d•Onsite

About The Position

NYC Parks is an award-winning City agency that designs, builds and cares for public spaces for New Yorkers to connect, play and enjoy. NYC Parks manages more than 30,000 acres or 14% of the City’s land, encompassing more than 5,000 individual properties. Our diverse set of assets includes recreational facilities, nature centers, historic buildings and structures, golf courses, athletic fields, playgrounds, tennis courts, public pools, comfort stations, and nearly 14 miles of beaches. The Planning unit is at the forefront of Parks’ open space agenda: communicating agency goals, policies and advancing plans for a vibrant and sustainable park system that meets the recreational, social, and environmental needs of our city. The team is responsible for the Agency’s real estate and land use functions including the acquisition, disposition and preservation of parkland, Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), environmental review, and the ownership and management of the Agency’s property records. Additionally, the team develops long-term planning strategies including management of citywide and interagency resiliency and waterfront projects, development of the citywide greenway plan, and researching new initiatives.

Requirements

1) current permanent City employees serving in the City Planner civil service title or 2) on leave from the title or 3) candidates who are reachable on the City Planner civil service list, Exam No. 1112 or 5045.
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.
All candidates must have a baccalaureate degree.

Nice To Haves

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.

Responsibilities

Under general direction of the Director of Environmental Review and Program Delivery, with latitude for independent initiative and judgment, work as a Senior Environmental Planner to manage a portfolio of environmental review matters, open space planning projects, economic development projects, climate resiliency, and special initiatives.
Serve as an agency representative for environmental review matters, policies and compliance on a diverse portfolio of projects in relation to associated City/State Environmental Quality Review Act (CEQR/SEQRA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures and regulations.
Ensure compliance with federal environmental regulations, including Section 4(f) requirements.
Provide technical review of private and public sector environmental documents to determine and evaluate environmental effects and impacts related to NYC Parks, which may include: coordination amongst city and agency staff, representing the agency at meetings, managing consultants, site visits, preparing correspondence and scheduling meetings.
Prepare and oversee the production of Type II Memos, Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements for NYC Parks-led projects.
Review and manage the coordination of subsurface investigations required to support environmental review.
Attend meetings and site visits with representatives of other agencies, consultants or project sponsors/developers to coordinate and discuss environmental review and other project matters.
Perform due diligence and prepare strategic planning documents, high level maps, and graphics for presentations and planning documents to support open space acquisitions, increased recreation amenities, improved waterfront access, resiliency planning, sustainable design, an expanded citywide greenway network and other planning efforts.
Coordinate and communicate with government agencies, stakeholders, project partners and members of the general public to advance the planning and implementation of Parks’ open space agenda within the context of assigned planning projects.
Research, analyze, frame and document opportunities for new projects that advance the Agency’s open space agenda.
Present and represent the division and the Agency at project meetings. Negotiate and advocate on behalf of Parks, defending the agency’s open space goals and interests.