We had a short piece in Wednesday’s print editions by our Corinne Lestch and Matt Chaban on the frontrunners for NYC Parks and Planning Department commissioners, but here’s a fuller story on the thinking inside City Hall.
Chaban reports:
De Blasio is expected to announce commissioners for the two departments as soon as this week, according to sources, with an impressive group of insiders and outsiders vying for the jobs.
The Planning chief is expected to be either Carl Weisbrod, the former City Hall economic development czar and co-chair of the de Blasio transition team, or Vicki Been, head of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at NYU.
Weisbrod (
pictured
) is seen by many as the favored pick of political hands and the real estate industry. He got his start as the executive director of the Planning Dept. before leaving to run the 42nd St. project in the ’70s and ’80s.
He also launched the city’s Economic Development Corp and the Downtown Alliance before going to work in real estate for Trinity Church.
Weisbrod is now a planning consultant for major developers as a principal at HR&A Advisors.
Meanwhile, Been is the preferred pick of the city’s progressive movement, given her extensive background in housing, an issue the administration has made a top priority.
But she has limited direct public sector experience, having worked at the NYU Law School since 1990.
Weisbrod appears to be the front runner, according to sources, though taking over the Planning Dept. would mean a substantial pay cut — though also more influence, especially in the wake of Amanda Burden, who transformed the department and rezoned one-third of the city.
“Whoever they pick, they’ve got a lot of work to do rebuilding that agency,” said one planning insider. “There’s been a lot of burnout and attrition the past few years.”
That includes the recent departure of David Karnovsky, the former general counsel of the department who many considered the glue holding together an agency that has been overwhelmed by budget cuts and more than 100 rezonings in the past decade.
“There’s a huge bandwidth problem that really needs to get corrected,” another source said.
Uptown at the Arsenal, three names have made the shortlist to take over the Parks Dept. from Veronica White, who, like Burden, left City Hall on Dec. 31 to joing Bloomberg Associates, tha ex-mayor’s new city consultancy.
The inside favorite is Queens Borough Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski (
pictured
). Like former commish Adrian Benepe, she has spent her whole life at Parks, working her way up from an Urban Ranger as a kid.
Previously she ran the Bronx office, and she has been widely celebrated for working closely with community groups and rebuilding Queens parks after Sandy.
Tapping the Cuomo connection, another choice is Rose Harvey, the state parks commissioner.
But Harvey previously worked for affordable housing developer Jonathan Rose and before that led The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that promotes parks development.
“She definitely has the experience to continue the public-private partnership so popular during the Bloomberg administration,” said a Parks source.
Speaking of Bloomberg, the third candidate is Emily Lloyd, former commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.
But she also comes out of de Blasio’s backyard, having run the Prospect Park Alliance since 2010, and working with him in the Dinkins years, too, when she was commissioner of the Sanitation Department.
Parks advocates are lobbying for Harvey, but Lloyd appears to be the administration’s pick, according to sources.
None of the candidates responded to requests for comment, and the mayor’s office declined.
Update:
Per a spokesman, Harvey “has not been contacted by the de Blasio administration at all and is very happy in her current position serving as the governor’s park commissioner.”
