Mamdani’s Land Use Board Pick Grilled by City Council

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pick to run a key land use board addressed lawmakers’ concerns head-on at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

John Mangin, who currently serves as director of the Department of City Planning’s housing division, used the appearance to make up ground with the City Council after several members publicly pushed back on his nomination to lead the Board of Standards and Appeals. Lawmakers have been vocal about taking issue with his background, including a 2014 paper he wrote in the Stanford University Law and Policy Review that included a line blaming “wealthy homeowner cartels” for blocking denser housing.

Adding to the scrutiny is the expanded power of the BSA, which gained more sway over certain land use decisions under City Charter revisions put forward by a panel led by Mangin.

Many Council members opposed the changes for diminishing their voice in land use decision-making.

“I just wanted to get clarification as to the term you had used called ‘homeowner cartels,’” Deputy Leader Chris Banks told Mangin. “Normal folks would take that offensively, especially when they advocate for their community.”

Mangin said in his testimony that it was a common term from fair housing literature and not one he coined in the paper.

Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams asked Mangin how to square his testimony on the importance of the Council’s say on land use processes with his role shaping the ballot measures, which she described as “hostile” to lawmakers.

She also pressed him to defend his paper on exclusionary zoning in the context of a city, pointing to her own district in Southeast Queens, which includes many Black middle- and working-class homeowners.

“Everybody understands exclusionary housing through a suburban lens,” he said, noting that the article wasn’t written about New York City. “I was trying to take a thing that everyone understood and apply it in a novel context to make a point that we should be building enough housing to ensure we’re providing for the needs of the full range of residents of various urban areas around the country.”

Mangin characterized his 2014 article as arguing that “in addition to all the other tools in our community development toolkit, we should also become forceful advocates for more housing of all types.”

“At the time, this felt like a somewhat novel argument. Today, it hardly needs to be said,” Mangin said. “Especially when I look at Council’s record on housing over the last decade, it seems like that argument has become a reality.”

Mangin touted his nearly two-decade track record in housing and land use, telling lawmakers he aims to make the land use regulation system “fairer, more responsive and more transparent” to support affordable housing. He also struck a conciliatory tone to convey he won’t bring ideological bias to the adjudicative role, noting the limitations of the BSA’s role and praising lawmakers’ accomplishments in advancing pro-housing initiatives he supports.

Mangin pointed to his work with nonprofit groups and community boards ranging from pro-housing and anti-development positions, as well as his 12 years at the Department of City Planning working on neighborhood rezonings and citywide initiatives like Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and City of Yes, which he called “the best, most inclusive conversation about housing this city has ever had.”

“When its prospects looked especially grim, the City Council picked it up and carried it across the finish line,” he told the Council. “The city is in your debt.”

Mangin also said in his testimony that he is eager to work with the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to stand up the BSA Fast Track for Affordable Housing, which he said has the potential to “bring affordable housing to every part of the city.”

Annemarie Gray, executive director of pro-housing group Open New York, testified in support of Mangin’s nomination at the hearing, saying that his leadership would help the City Council fast-track publicly-funded 100 percent affordable housing projects that lawmakers have touted as top priorities.

“The fact that John has long acknowledged the basic reality that for decades New York City’s approach to housing and land use has led to exclusionary outcomes should be a prerequisite for the job, not a disqualification,” Gray said.

Several Council members acknowledged at the hearing that they had met privately with Mangin to discuss his positions beforehand, and thanked him for his willingness to field their concerns. (Among the pre-hearing appointments was a walking tour of Deputy Leader Chris Banks’ district in Brooklyn on Monday, which he cited for its examples of the types of development he hopes to see more of across the city.)

The committee also heard testimony on the nomination of Lisa Garcia, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, for one of seven seats on the board of the city’s forthcoming land bank.

Mangin was sure to underline a key point from his past writings and his written testimony, that all types of projects should be in the mix when a community is seeking to build its way out of a housing shortage.

“Families in New York City have an extremely diverse range of needs and wants. Ideally, we can create a housing policy that accommodates all of them,” Mangin said.

The Council has not yet set a date for a final vote on Mangin’s nomination, but will hold its next stated meeting on Sept. 10, where lawmakers typically vote on bills and confirmations.