DCP’s new interactive tool for community boards. Image Credit: DCP

New and improved online platform will help Community Boards advocate for public priorities. On August 26, 2019, Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Marisa Lago announced a new and improved online platform which will help Community Boards advocate for public priorities more easily. The new, user-friendly digital platform will allow Community Boards to formally submit their annual needs and budget requests to the City with easier access to relevant City data to assist with their requests. (more…)

DCP released a new interactive tool to identify areas in need of supermarkets. Image Credit: NYC DCP

Newest interactive tool helps communities evaluate supermarket needs. On August 2, 2019, the Department of City Planning launched the Supermarket Needs Index, a new interactive online map that shows fresh food store access across New York City. The map highlights which neighborhoods are underserved or lacking grocery store options. (more…)

NYC Department of City Planning

The City’s zoning laws are now instantly accessible to New Yorkers. On February 6, 2019, Department of City Planning Director Marisa Lago announced the release of the City’s digital Zoning Resolution online platform. The online platform will serve as a green replacement for the 1,570-page physical copy of the Resolution, which will no longer be printed to save money, increase government transparency, and fight climate change. It will also be a more interactive replacement for the static PDFs currently on the City Planning website. The platform will make the City’s Zoning Resolution more accessible for New Yorkers.

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Chart displays the percentage of Airbnb’s listings offering entire homes in New York City before and after Airbnb took down more than 1,000 of them. Image credit: Tom Slee & Murray Cox

Elected officials and affordable housing activists unite at State capitol in support of the legislation.  On February 24, 2016, 300 members and supporters of the Share Better coalition rallied at the State capitol in support of Assembly Bill A08704, which would ban most online listings advertising rental apartments for less than thirty days per renter. Bill A08704 was proposed to the State Assembly approximately one month after a report was released to the public that tends to show Airbnb released its site data to the public only after purging its site of more than 1,000 illegal temporary rental listings. The rally was held on the same day Airbnb issued a letter to the State legislature to reassure Assembly Members and Senators of the company’s commitment to working with the City in creating fair rules for operating the home-sharing network.

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Mark Davies, Executive Director of the Conflicts of Interest Board.

After mayoral election, COIB Executive Director’s focus remains on prevention. Mark Davies is currently in his twentieth year as the Executive Director of the Conflicts of Interest Board. He is a native of Long Beach, California who moved to New York in 1968 to attend Columbia University, where he majored in German and English. Following his graduation in 1971, Davies studied Germanic Philology at Philipps-Universität in Marburg, Germany on a one year fellowship. Upon his return to the United States, Davies enrolled in Columbia Law School, a choice he made after considering other options, including seminary and a medieval studies program at Yale. (more…)