John Mangin heads to the hot seat

Mamdani’s pick to lead the Board of Standards and Appeals met lawmaker pushback, as the City Council approaches a crossroads at next week’s confirmation hearing.

John Mangin, who is currently director of the Department of City Planning’s housing division, received vociferous opposition from many council members who took issue with a paper he wrote more than a decade ago in Stanford University Law and Policy Review. 

In the article, he called out “wealthy homeowner cartels,” citing a tendency to limit density in their neighborhoods that he argued has hindered attempts to increase housing supply in high-demand areas.

Lawmakers including Deputy Speaker Nantasha Williams, Land Use Committee Chair Kevin Riley and even Speaker Julie Menin have voiced concerns about his views on homeowner influence in land use discussions and community benefits agreements. The Real Deal columnist Erik Engquist captured the debate last week, but the Council has shown little evidence of reconciliation with Mangin’s positions since then.

With the Sept. 1 confirmation hearing fast approaching, Mamdani’s nominee for a role imbued with new powers after City Charter revisions last year is still in for a contentious line of questioning. Advocacy groups including the Real Estate Board of New York and the New York Housing Conference, along with Annemarie Gray, who leads abundance group Open New York, have thrown their support behind Mangin.

Mitch Korbey, chair of the land use and zoning group at Herrick, Feinstein, served as a BSA commissioner during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations. He thinks the Council is likely to set aside its differences with Mangin and ultimately confirm him to lead BSA next week.

“It’s a very special agency, it certainly has its powers, but it’s not a legislative function or political function at all, and it’s always been independent,” Korbey said. “It’s not implementing new policy, it’s simply in a very discrete fashion going to be ruling and making decisions on certain housing development projects.”

Speaker Menin and Council leadership have found some common ground with Mamdani on the more pro-development aspects of his agenda, though last year’s ballot measures also weakened the tradition of member deference considerably with updates to land use processes. Riley explicitly pushed back against “perception online that this Council is a NIMBY Council” at a press conference following the initial Mangin nomination dust-up. But the legislative body’s actions will speak louder than one member’s words when it comes to earning a YIMBY label.

If he secures the role of BSA chair, Mangin won’t have unilateral say on matters before the board, nor will he necessarily operate in lockstep with the mayoral administration that selected him for the job, according to Korbey.

“When I was there, there were times when I voted on things that might have been unpopular in terms of the administration,” he said. “The chair only has one vote, just as the other commissioners, and it takes a majority of the board to adopt anything. This has become political, it’s become a push and pull between the administration and the Council, but John is without question qualified, without question an expert in his field.”

Low vacancy rates and climbing rents indicate a housing shortage that the administration and the Council alike have agreed will be a main policy focus. But addressing the need for more housing will require immediate action if the Mamdani administration hopes to alleviate supply issues by building 700,000 homes, including 200,000 affordable units, over the next decade.

“I understand the Council’s concern here, but this is not a political decision,” Korbey said. “We have seen in the past decade or so, particularly in the area of neighborhood rezonings, what I sometimes call hyper-localism. Initiatives that can have a broad city impact and provide real opportunities for a borough or the city have been held up because of the concerns of a block.”

What we’re thinking about: Do you think the Council will approve Mangin? Is he likely to make a big splash if confirmed as BSA chair? Let me know your predictions at ben.miller@therealdeal.com.

A thing we’ve learned:

• Ever wondered what the colorful plastic tags embedded in New York City sidewalks mean, or how about the spray-painted markings left behind by city workers? They’re usually left behind to indicate who last performed maintenance work on a patch of sidewalk or roadway or what lies beneath the asphalt, letting other agencies know what infrastructure is below before they start digging, the New York Times reported.

Elsewhere…

• NJ Transit lost nearly $4 million operating trains to World Cup games at the Meadowlands complex this summer, Gothamist reported. The transit provider’s chief financial officer called its $98 round-trip ticket pricing “appropriate” and said it was a step to “improve farebox recovery” in a memo, but service cost a total of $55.7 million compared with just $51.7 million in revenue during the games. Ridership didn’t reach the 40,000 tickets NJ Transit set aside for each game, peaking at 26,221 for the June 16 match between France and Senegal.
• City Hall has delayed the publication of its strategy for adding 2,100 public bathrooms across the five boroughs, after the mayor’s team said the task of coordinating city agencies to release the plan by Sept. 1 was too complicated to meet the deadline. Legislation dubbed the Bathroom Bill passed in the City Council last April, aiming to double the number of public restrooms over the following decade. Deputy Mayor Julia Kerson — who is also spearheading the mayor’s BQE Central rehabilitation efforts — told Speaker Menin in a letter that the bathroom rollout was backed up, but plans to submit the report by Nov. 1, per the City Reporter.
• President Donald Trump won’t attend a ceremony at Ground Zero commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11, opting to skip the event because he won’t be permitted to deliver a speech, the New York Daily News reported. He is expected to attend a ceremony at the Pentagon where he will deliver a speech, with Vice President JD Vance replacing him at the Lower Manhattan event. 

Closing time

Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Friday was $7.9 million for 60 Riverside Boulevard, Unit 3501. The Upper West Side condo unit in The Aldyn building is 4,400 square feet. Blu Real Estate’s Alon Chadad, David Tobon, Jonathan Kamback and Edward Diaz had the listing.

Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $21.6 million for 1265 Oak Point Avenue. The Hunts Point warehouse is 50,000 square feet. 

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market is $9 million for 111 Leroy Street, Unit 9. The West Village condo unit is 2,430 square feet and about $3,700 per square foot. The Corcoran Group’s Catherine Juracich and Thomas Ventura have the listing.

— Joseph Jungermann