Matt Gewolb, Legislative Director, NYC Council.

Matt Gewolb began serving as Legislative Director for the New York City Council under Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito in June 2014. Although he holds among the most powerful staff positions at the Council, Matt is revered for his modesty, incredible intelligence and for putting the goals of the Council before all else. The 32 year old already has amassed a resume with diverse experiences, achievements and outcomes, rich with advice that should be heeded by anyone interested in pursuing or continuing a career in New York City law and government. (read more…)

Kate Daly, Executive Director of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Kate Daly, the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s Executive Director oversees all of the agency’s operations, including its budget and personnel. She plays an important role in shepherding properties through the landmarking process, from the initial stages through designation. She is pivotal in the outreach process to communities and property owners, meeting with and educating people about the responsibilities and benefits of landmarking.

Daly came to Landmarks in 2002 after completing her graduate degree in historic preservation from the University of Pennsylvania, where she wrote a thesis on the preservation of ruins at “sites of conscience,” including World War II internment camps, Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary, and New York’s Tenement Museum. Daly earned an undergraduate degree in history from Cornell, which she followed with work in publishing and at human rights non-profits. She sought her graduate degree to better pursue a career related to her interest in history While studying at Penn she began in her professional career in preservation, working for the historic house trust, where she conducted surveys of historic buildings. (read more…)

Paula Segal, founder, Executive Director & Legal Director at 596 Acres. Photo credit: Lauren Silberman.

Paula Segal is the founder, Executive Director, and Legal Director of 596 Acres, a non-profit community land access program in New York City that supports and advocates the transformation of vacant public land into sustainable community institutions. The name 596 Acres refers to the amount of vacant land in Brooklyn as represented by the Department of City Planning when the organization began in 2010. Ms. Segal is a graduate of City University of New York Law School, where she was a Haywood Burns Fellow in Human and Civil Rights.  She is a partner at Mohen & Segal, a law firm that provides legal services for entities working on shared sustainable economies. (read more…)

Kate Sinding. Image Credit: NRDC.

Kate Sinding is a Senior Attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council for the New York Urban Program. She has lived all over the world, spending her childhood years in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Kenya, as well as various locations in the United States. She studied women’s rights and international development at Barnard College. Sinding went to law school at New York University, where she earned a joint degree in law and public policy at Princeton. She started her environmental career at Sive, Paget & Riesel and dedicated herself to the firm for 10 years. Upon becoming a partner with the firm, Sinding remembered her desire to do non-profit environmental work and left the firm to pursue a career at the NRDC.

Early on in her career at the NRDC, Sinding worked on fighting five Las Vegas-style casinos that were proposed for the Catskill region of upstate NY. The NRDC’s stance was that such an intense land use was inconsistent with the region’s large system of drinking water reservoirs. Those reservoirs supply approximately 90 percent of NYC’s drinking water. This source of clean, unfiltered water is maintained thanks to partnerships between the State, City, local municipalities, and environmental organizations that keep the watershed untouched by development through watershed agreements intended to preserve large swaths of land around the reservoirs. Though the casino projects have been successfully fended off thus far, Sinding and the NRDC quickly learned that there was another looming threat to NYC’s drinking water.

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Howard Slatkin. Image Credit: DCP.

Howard Slatkin, the director of sustainability for the New York City Department of City Planning, was a frequent visitor to NYC while growing up in New Jersey, but it was not until he moved to the City after studying history at Brown University, that he became interested in architecture and the social life of places. He earned a master’s degree in urban planning at Columbia University in 2000. At that time the concept of sustainability, though embedded in the course curriculum, had not yet gained the notoriety it has today.

From City planning to City sustainability. Slatkin joined the Department of City Planning immediately after graduation in the summer of 2000; he started as the community planner for Brooklyn Community District 1. His first task was to look closely at the Williamsburg, Brooklyn area and how the community was changing around the L subway line. His work eventually became part of the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning. The rezoning addressed population growth in the area and the disparity between the actual and legal uses of industrial buildings that were increasingly being used as residential and commercial spaces. The experience exposed Slatkin to many important issues including mixed-use development, waterfront redevelopment, and affordable housing, which became one of Slatkin’s areas of expertise and focus. The Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning created the City’s current tool for affordable housing development – the Inclusionary Housing Program, which allows developers to take advantage of a floor area bonus in exchange for creating or preserving units of affordable housing for targeted income levels. The program has been used to encourage affordable housing development in many of City Planning’s rezoned areas, including Hudson Yards, West Chelsea/High Line, and West Harlem. From there, Slatkin became increasingly involved with the policy side of city planning and eventually became deputy director of strategic planning, where he oversaw the special projects, and in particular the green initiatives, for all of City Planning’s divisions.

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