Director of Land Use and Policy 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 Associate Commissioner of Neighborhood Strategies.

Your Impact:

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.


Your Role:

Your role will be to lead a range of activities related to affordable housing development and neighborhood planning. Primary roles include affordable housing pipeline development and oversight; intra- and inter-agency coordination; facilitation of land use approvals required for disposition of City-owned sites; development and implementation of policy related to land use and Urban Renewal; and provision of mapping and presentation materials for internal analysis and public engagement.

Your Responsibilities:

Under the supervision of the Executive Director of Land Use and Resiliency Policy, the Director of Land Use and Policy develops, implements, and manages review of all HPD land use applications, oversight of HPD’s pipeline and access to HPD-owned sites, and due diligence of sites. Specifically, you will be expected to:

Planning and Project Management:

- 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.

Strategy and Operations:

- Work with th