Wanted: a City Planning commissioner after Dan Garodnick decided to step away from city government.
New York City’s top planning official informed his staff on Thursday that he was leaving his role, the New York Daily News reported. The decision came after Garodnick was seemingly passed over for a deputy mayor post with Zohran Mamdani’s administration.
In an email to his staff, Garodnick said that “the time is right for me to move on.” He plans on staying on to support the transition to whoever takes his place.
“I do not take my departure lightly,” Garodnick added.
A spokesperson for Mamdani confirmed Garodnick’s pending departure, but did not comment any further on the decision.
Eric Adams appointed Garodnick as director of the Department of City Planning and chair of the City Planning Commission in 2022. Garodnick guided several of Adams’ biggest housing policies, including passage of the City of Yes and the Midtown South rezoning.
Prior to his time with the planning department, Garodnick was a Manhattan City Councilmember for 12 years. He helped negotiate Blackstone and Ivanhoe Cambridge’s $5.3 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village in 2015, which required the owners to keep 5,000 of the complex’s apartments affordable for at least 20 years.
He also shepherded the rezoning of Midtown East through the city’s arduous land use review process.
Who takes Garodnick’s post with the DCP and CPC will be closely watched by those in the real estate industry. The position is instrumental for development plans in the city, particularly in the realm of affordable housing.
Mamdani has promised to construct 200,000 affordable units in the next decade.
Dina Levy, the senior vice president of single family and community development with the state’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal, recently landed the nomination as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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