The need for [Community Board] representation remains clear, although the boards’ functioning, as with many government agencies, has struggled to adapt in the 21st century.

• Future of Community Boards Working Group December 2021 report

At a recent meeting of Manhattan Community Board 3, we received some exciting news: the NYC Civic Engagement Commission (CEC) announced it was studying, in partnership with the National Civic League and Perfect City, how it can “help the community improve how public meetings are experienced by residents, elected officials, and municipal staff”.

While the CEC’s work will cover more than community boards, the impact on local governance through improving community board operations in particular has immense potential for public perceptions of government effectiveness. Community boards (CBs) are the base layer of local government in New York, intended to be a primary conduit for neighborhoods to communicate with City agencies and elected officials and vice versa.

Acting as this neighborhood-government connector, CBs are a key actor in bringing community concerns to the attention of those in power and in acting as the voice of the community.

However, CBs are also notorious for their long, inefficient meetings, where members argue over minutiae with no results and discussions on a single topic can drag on for hours. The length of meetings and difficulty in reaching consensus is a frequent complaint I hear from community board members, public attendees, and the agency representatives that present at meetings. CBs are also chronically underfunded; they lack administrative support and professional expertise, and their operations are too often dispersed and ad hoc.1

As a result, CBs often become blockers on much-needed public and private developments, or are simply ignored and worked around as much as possible.

A system in which a key actor is treated as an inconvenience and dreaded or avoided by both public and private actors is not a healthy system. It is in the best interest of the Mayor’s Office, city agencies, and the CBs themselves for the CBs to function better, so that they may better serve the interests of the neighborhood they represent and be a value-adding player in local government.

Given the opportunity of the Civic Engagement Commission’s ongoing study, I would like to present my recommendations for improving community board operations and making them more effective public bodies.

Suggestions to Improve NYC Community Boards

I have organized all the below recommendations into three categories: ensuring community board members are effective, making meetings work more efficiently, and building the structural support that makes both possible.

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1. Step up expectations and support for members

• Enforce parliamentary procedure, with a trained person responsible for it in an executive position on every board. Most boards nominally operate under Robert’s Rules of Order, but enforcement varies wildly by CB Chairs, and meetings drift when it lapses. I wrote a full guide to how Robert’s Rules works at CB meetings because parliamentary fluency is the difference between a meeting that decides things and a meeting that circles endlessly. Boards should be required to appoint a parliamentarian from among their members, and the CEC, which already offers parliamentary procedure training to boards, should provide additional and mandatory training to both parliamentarians and chairs. Current CEC trainings should also be evaluated for effectiveness and new trainings and resources updated to suit members’ needs.

  • A complementary tool should be built by the CEC: an AI assistant trained on Robert’s Rules that chairs and parliamentarians can query mid-meeting to resolve procedural disputes in seconds instead of ten-minute detours. This is a tool any one city office could build once for use by all boards.

  • Further, a properly trained AI agent like this could analyze meeting transcripts to assess compliance with Robert’s Rules and the boards’ bylaws and provide coaching or additional support for the CBs most in need. This can help board parliamentarians to learn from mistakes and improve enforcement, ensuring more efficient meetings.

• Make onboarding mandatory. New members currently learn bylaws and procedures on-the-job, with no training prior to appointment or first meetings. The 2018 charter amendment already tasks the CEC with providing boards urban planning and technical assistance, and the CEC offers trainings on parliamentary procedure, zoning, and language access. What is missing is any requirement to take them. Borough presidents should condition appointment on completing a standard onboarding: how a meeting runs, what a resolution is, how ULURP and the budget process work, and the conflict-of-interest rules.

  • Similarly, CB staff should be provided with both mandatory and surplus optional training on relevant technology, human resources, and development of bylaws and meeting procedures. Centralized training provided through Borough President (BP) Offices or the CEC would standardize best practices across CBs and upskill the limited resources CBs do have.

• Publicly track member attendance and engagement. Mandate that all CBs report members’ attendance at full board and committee meetings, and publicly display attendance rates by member and per board to make tracking easier. Provide resources and support to help CBs quickly remove and replace members who stop attending meetings.

  • The Comptroller’s October 2024 audit of board appointments found borough presidents reappointing members who missed most meetings; a training requirement paired with attendance standards would raise the floor on member engagement.

  • For a carrot to accompany this stick, publicly recognize and award CB members who go above and beyond. Either BP Offices, the CEC, or even the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement should set up awards that CB members can be nominated for in a number of categories like best innovation, community leader, public advocate. Incentivize CB engagement and recognize those who use the position to be pillars of their community.

2. Run meetings like the public’s time matters

• Time all speakers, including board members. Public session speakers at most boards get two or three minutes with a timer. Board members debating a motion often get unlimited time. Robert’s Rules contains the fix, since it allows bodies to set debate limits by standing rule. Boards should cap member speaking time per motion and empower the chair (or a parliamentarian) to enforce it. The Better Public Meetings project’s research argues that state laws governing local meetings offer more procedural flexibility than most bodies realize; boards are freer to redesign their own meetings than they assume.

• Make hybrid attendance permanent and easy. Since 2022, New York’s Open Meetings Law has allowed public bodies to run hybrid meetings, and the statute explicitly lets each community board in NYC make its own determination on videoconferencing. The result is 59 separate policies. Some boards run excellent hybrid meetings while others offer no remote option at all. For working parents, disabled residents, and anyone who cannot give up several hours on a weeknight, remote access is the difference between participating and not.

  • Every board should be mandated to offer virtual attendance options, and the City should fund the equipment and staffing to make it reliable rather than leaving it to each board’s improvisation. A centralized IT/communications team that provides tech support and training to CB staff would go a long way here.

  • Local Law 103 of 2013, which requires City bodies to webcast their meetings live and archive recordings within 72 hours, contains an explicit carve-out stating the law “shall not apply to community boards.” The Charter requires only that boards make meetings “available for” broadcasting. Twelve years later, the exemption has outlived whatever justification it had, since a webcast now requires only a laptop and some microphones with minimal tech setup. The Council should extend Local Law 103 to community boards and pair the requirement with funding for the equipment and training.

• Centralize community board bylaws and create enforcement mechanisms for when they are violated. Currently, every board maintains its own bylaws, leading to a wide variance in how meetings are conducted and a lack of knowledge in appropriate procedure. Centralizing bylaws at the City Charter level would provide consistency with how CBs operate, simplify training and knowledge sharing of best practices, and allow the City to more easily track violations of CB policy.

  • The CEC should also set up an intake process for CB members to report bylaw violations or submit questions for help with figuring out proper procedure. Community boards are city agencies, and just like any other agency, there must be pathways for enforcing the rules and holding members accountable.

3. Give boards the shared infrastructure they have never had

• Build permanent CB support divisions in each borough president’s office. Borough presidents appoint board members and are the closest thing boards have to an oversight body, but support is inconsistent across boroughs and administrations. The Manhattan Borough President’s office runs a training series for board members; other boroughs offer less. Los Angeles shows what institutionalized support looks like: its 99 Neighborhood Councils are backed by a permanent city agency, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which handles training, funding administration, and elections citywide, and every member takes state-mandated training on managing public funds. New York should charter the equivalent: a permanent division in each borough president’s office responsible for board oversight, training, and shared services, so that support survives changes in administration.

  • Alternatively, create a Central Staff team in the new Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement, or a dedicated (in complement to the appointed) staff at the CEC, that assists the boards and District Managers with matters ranging from human resources to onboarding new board members. As the FCBWG report says, “The boards also need consistent access to technology, functional office space, and expertise in land use and zoning.” A dedicated team in the BPs’ or Mayor’s office could standardize such support while also providing oversight.

  • Social media training, funding, and support should also be added to the existing catalog of trainings. CBs could better engage with the public if they utilized social media platforms, but CB staff need training in order to do so.

• Stand up one tech platform instead of 59. The City Council runs its entire legislative operations, votes, and bill text on one shared Legistar system. Community boards each improvise their own stack of websites, mailing lists, and spreadsheets. The Future of Community Boards Working Group reported in December 2021 that all 59 boards relied on a single person for IT support, and one district manager spent roughly $185,000 over five years piecing together technology for a single board. A centralized platform for agendas, minutes, resolutions, and complaint tracking, built once and maintained by the City, would cost a fraction of 59 separate efforts and make every board’s records searchable in one place.

  

• Publish a public dashboard on how every board is doing. The City Charter requires each board to maintain a website with meeting notices and twelve months of minutes, and the Open Meetings Law requires minutes within two weeks of a meeting. But these requirements are only the bare minimum, and more information should be posted. A public dashboard, run by the borough presidents or the CEC, should track for every board: average meeting length, member attendance, whether minutes are posted on time, whether resolutions are accessible online, and whether the board offers hybrid attendance. The metrics should be anchored to goals each borough president sets for their boards, such as how many members of the public attend meetings.

  • Another extension of this recommendation would be for the CEC or each BP’s office to distill insights from this dashboard and other data collected from CBs as best practices shared with every CB staff and members. Top performing CBs should be recognized and their successes copied. Another opportunity for awards!

• Fund the boards so they can actually operate and improve. Every structural fix above runs into the same constraint: In FY2026, the 59 boards’ budgets total $21.9 million, a median of $370,150 per board, with the lowest at $276,449. That works out to roughly $2.50 per district resident per year for the body charged with representing them, about two hundredths of one percent of the city budget. The Future of Community Boards Working Group reported that boards had not received a significant baseline budget increase since 2014, with a typical board allocated $231,100 for its entire staff. The Charter allows boards to hire planners and professional staff, but only “within the budgetary appropriations therefor,” which in practice means most boards weigh in on complex land use applications with no planner on staff. A meaningful baseline increase, enough for every board to employ a full-time urban planner or other expert alongside its district manager, would cost the City less than $15 million a year and transform the quality of the advice boards give on the land use decisions the Charter assigns them.

Conclusion

Despite the many inefficiencies, chronic underfunding, and ignorance of their existence by the majority of NYC residents, community boards remain important elements of local governance. The State relies on community boards to process liquor license applications, City agencies rely on community boards to signal community support or rejection of proposed changes to be made to streets and parks and landmarks, and residents rely on community boards to direct and amplify complaints and requests to the appropriate city officials.

Without a doubt, community boards play an essential role in connecting residents and communities to the many complex organs of City and State government. However, their lack of transparency to those same communities and their unstandardized, inconsistent mode of operation hinder their value.

Adopting any of the above recommendations, done through a mix of City Charter reform (a great opportunity for the Mayor to create another Charter Revision Commission) and Borough Presidents’ backing, could have massive benefits to the operations of the city government at the most local level. Even with community boards’ small, advisory role in government, their perception by the communities they represent plays an outsized role in the public’s perceived effectiveness of the City. A government that can be better trusted and relied upon to serve its citizens is one that will experience more success in implementing policies overall.

Lastly, as mentioned above, the CEC is currently conducting a public survey and research process on how to improve public meetings in NYC. For those who would like to share their own thoughts, here is guidance from the CEC on how to get involved:

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Any opinions expressed below are solely my own and do not represent the views of Manhattan Community Board 3.

Find your community district and key information about it here.

Manhattan Community Board 3 Jul 2026 Full Board Meeting

Tuesday, Jul 28, 2026 - 6:30pm

Beacon Center at MS 131 - 100 Hester St

Meeting Highlights:

• Board leadership changes: MCB3’s Chair is stepping down, with the First Vice Chair moving into the Chair role and the Second Vice Chair becoming First Vice Chair. A special election will be held to fill the Second Vice Chair seat.

• Canal Street redesign split into two phases: Phase 1, from Broadway to West Street and including a two-way bike lane, will be implemented by this fall. Phase 2 will follow next summer or fall to allow for more community input.

• ConEd grid work coming to the LES: ConEd is launching a three-year load transfer between its Avenue A and Cherry Street substations to build out grid resiliency, citing extreme summer heat, energy demand forecasts, and continued development in the neighborhood. Work may cause obstructions, and ConEd will release a one-page FAQ soon.

• Harold Hunter Court: The Parks Committee passed a resolution supporting naming the multi-purpose field in the northwest corner of Tompkins Square Park “Harold Hunter Court.”

Notes from board meeting:

Public Session

• Climate scientist concerned with the increased occurrence of inclement weather and other risks driven by climate change

  • removal of climate data and community services by the government is also of concern

  • looking to connect with other community members to discuss actions to take

  • contact Kylie at kylie.m.sustainability@gmail.com if you are interested or want to learn more!

• ArtBridge does murals around NYC, part of their goal is to cover eyesores like construction fencing with public art

  • currently working with ConEd on a building on Avenue A, between 5th and 6th Streets, to beautify a wall covered in graffiti

• ConEd is doing a load transfer between substations (Avenue A to Cherry Street) to build out the resiliency of the electric grid in the LES

  • necessary given the extreme hot summers of recent years, current energy demand forecasts, and the continued development of the LES

  • 3-year project, work may cause some obstructions in the meantime

  • 1-pager FAQ with more information is currently being created and will be released by ConEd soon

• Speaker from NYC Commission on Racial Equity introducing the office

  • created as a voter initiative in 2022 to hold government accountable to advancing racial equity in NYC

  • community equity priorities are used by agencies to inform two-year strategies on how they will advance racial equity

Elected Officials Reports

• Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Liaison

  • Representative from Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement (OME)

    • OME was created two days after Mayor Mamdani assumed office

    • working on building up the structure of the office and how it will support community boards

    • currently focused on tenants’ rights, planning to do political education town halls called NYC 101

• Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s Liaison

  • Updates on the Legionnaire’s Disease outbreak on the Upper East Side

  • Travel advisory through Wednesday due to heavy rains and wind

• Assemblymember Grace Lee’s Liaison

  • Hosting mobile office hours across Lower Manhattan - exact details to come out in social media posts/newsletter from the Assemblymember

  • Giving out free backpacks and other resources at an event on 8/21 - more details to be released soon

• Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s Liaison

  • Free school meals for NYC children 18 and younger, more information here

  • Community health advocates can help people find new health coverage, resolve medical debt, and any matters dealing with insurance companies

• Assemblymember Keith Powers’ Liaison

  • Clean Streets day of action on 7/31

  • Recycling event on 8/2

  • Mobile office hours on 8/4

  • Coffee with Keith event on 8/28 10-11:30 AM

• Councilmember Christopher Martre’s Liaison

  • 10 hour hearing held on CM Martre’s bill to ban horse carriages

• Councilmember Harvey Epstein’s Liaison

  • Co-authored an op-ed about the horse carriage ban with CM Martre

  • Hosting outreach events about student loans, including addressing recent changes to student loans regulations

  • Hang with Harvey event at Washington Square Park, 7/29 4-6 PM

Board Reports

• Board Chair’s Report

  • State Open Meeting Law and MCB3’s resolution passed in May 2022 state which circumstances allow board members to attend meetings remotely

    

  • MCB3 Chair is stepping down from the position; First Vice Chair is stepping into the Board Chair role

    • Second Vice Chair is stepping into the First Vice Chair role, there will be a special election for the Second Vice Chair role

• District Manager’s Report

  • No full board meeting in August, no committee meetings in August except SLA and Cannabis Task Force

  • New portal for outdoor dining applications is difficult to use, even compared to other city portals

  • On 9/21, MCB3 will have a Charter-mandated meeting to hear from all in the district on budget priorities

    • encourage anyone in the district to come and talk about what they think deserves attention

Committee Reports

See Committee Meeting recordings here!

• Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency

  • Resolution on naming the multi-purpose field in the northwest corner of Tompkins Square Park to “Harold Hunter Court”

    

• Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment

  • Chinatown Connections update: funding came in from the state

    • expect to vote on the project in the fall

  • Delancey Street construction project will start next spring

  • Canal Street Redesign has been broken into two phases

    • Phase 1 will be implemented by this fall, Broadway to West Street, including a two-way bike lane

    • Phase 2 will be implemented next summer/fall to gather more community input

• Landmarks

  • Resolution to support approving certificate of appropriateness for Middle Collegiate Church to create greenspace at 112 Second Avenue

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The benefits that current Large Language Models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude can provide as tool builders are particularly powerful relative to the current frustratingly outdated methods used for many government functions. Governments run in many ways on unstructured text (regulations, forms, case files, transcripts), and that is exactly the context in which LLMs can thrive.

The question now is whether government institutions are ready to embrace this evolution in how they build, which will require adapting operations to take advantage of the new fast-paced builds unlocked by AI tools. Currently, the rules and processes that govern how bureaucratic teams function make it exceedingly difficult to do so.

As said in her excellent post on government reform,

AI is not a miracle tool that will solve every problem in government bureaucracy. Just like computers, the Internet, phones, and all other previous technological advancements, there are good uses and bad uses.

But the capabilities of these models to enhance state capacity with proper use and guidance is now too large to ignore. Not adapting ways of work in government to quickly adopt AI in the public sector will only result in continued failure to provide practical solutions to any of today’s most pressing problems.

In future posts I will dive deeper into individual applications of AI-driven state capacity transformation, and look at specific examples in New York and elsewhere. I would like this article to serve as a catalog and starting point for where public agencies, legislatures, and any other policy institution can harness the power of the latest AI models for the public good.

The following use cases, already being implemented by many public bodies locally and nationally, can serve as examples for all government bodies to follow for building out state capacity in the 21st century.

Improving Public Service Delivery

Problem:

Eligible residents routinely fail to receive benefits they qualify for. Application backlogs, multi-week call center waits, eligibility rules written at a college reading level, and English-only forms create what researchers call “time tax” and drive benefits churn (people losing coverage at renewal despite still qualifying). SNAP, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and housing vouchers are all well-known examples.

For example, SNAP is one federal program with one set of rules. Yet in 2019, only ten states enrolled 100% of eligible people, and the national average was 82% of eligible people enrolled. Wyoming reached just 55% of its eligible population.

How AI Can Help:

• Multilingual benefits navigators that answer eligibility questions at 2am in a resident’s first language, reducing call center load.

• Document and case processing that clears determination backlogs (verifying pay stubs, IDs, residency proofs) so caseworkers can focus on judgment calls.

• Caseworker copilots that surface the relevant policy clause mid-call instead of forcing a transfer.

• Plain-language rewrites of denial notices and renewal letters, which are a leading cause of avoidable churn.

• Examples: Code for America and Nava’s benefits work, California and Minnesota’s eligibility modernization, and philanthropy-funded pilots.

How to mitigate risk:

Keep a human in the loop on any denial or adverse determination. AI can triage and draft cases and responses but never issue the final “no.” Disclose to residents when they are talking to a bot, audit outputs for disparate error rates across language and demographic groups, and protect PII at the model layer. Build a clean human fallback for every automated path.

Procurement and Contracting

Problem:

The arcane rules that determine how government buys things is one of the deepest sources of our present dysfunction. The procurement process is slow, expensive, and stacked against small vendors. NYC is one of the worst offenders in this case: in FY2024, it registered 85% of its non-profit contract value late. That is a number that has only been trending worse with each passing year.

Even in ideal cases, procurement cycles routinely run a year or more, requirements are written in ways that lock out small and newer vendors, and the paperwork burden means agencies often re-buy what they already have or stick with incumbents because switching is too painful.

Procurement is the chokepoint on nearly every other reform; you can’t deliver a better service if it takes 18 months to contract the software. The same dysfunction that AI tools could help fix is what blocks government from adopting them, making this one of the most important domains to address. Of course, some procedural unblocking will need to be done first.

How AI Can Help:

• Drafting and standardizing RFPs and scopes of work from a plain-language description of what an agency needs, cutting weeks off the front end.

• Summarizing and comparing vendor bids against stated criteria so evaluation committees spend their time on judgment, not on reading hundreds of pages.

• Flagging waste, duplicate contracts, and improper payments by scanning spending data across agencies.

• Simplifying vendor onboarding and registration, the step that disproportionately screens out small and minority-owned businesses.

• So, so much more.

How to mitigate risk:

Award decisions stay with human evaluators and must remain auditable and challengeable; AI ranks and summarizes options, but it does not pick winners. Watch for models that quietly favor incumbents or large vendors whose documentation is more polished, and keep procurement integrity rules (conflict-of-interest, transparency) fully intact around any automation.

Improved transparency and advocacy

Problem:

Government is hard to watch from the outside, and even harder to understand and interpret. Open data portals are technical, regulations are written in legal jargon, and even seemingly simple processes span multiple agencies with no single map. The result is people feeling abandoned or antagonized by systems intended to help them.

AI can reshape work outside the public sector too. It is being utilized by journalists, advocates, and capable citizens to investigate government data and shed light on systems that are difficult to understand or follow from the outside. Asking agents to answer questions based on specific government websites, databases, or even looking at city charters or state constitutions has proven to be effective.

It is easier for anyone to work with and understand government open data portals, to have lawyer-jargon regulations and laws explained to them, to create maps and diagrams of complex government processes For example, look at this beautiful visual from Vital City breaking down an example of the process a building permit goes through in NYC:

How AI Can Help:

• Plain-language explanation of laws, regulations, charters, and constitutions for non-lawyers.

• Building maps and diagrams of opaque processes.

• Interactive document explorers over City Council, state legislature, and Congressional transcripts and data.

• Taking transcripts and data from the New York City Council up to the U.S. Congress and producing summaries and interactive document explorers to help the public track and engage with all levels of government.

And of course I have to plug my own tool, Block Party, where our team has been working to increase awareness and engagement of NYC community boards meetings and resolutions.

How to mitigate risk:

Hallucination is the central risk when AI explains the law to the public. Model responses must always cite source documents, link back to primary sources, and frame outputs as starting points to verify rather than authoritative legal advice. More work will need to be done to address the equity gap: the people best positioned to use these tools are often already the most engaged.

Workforce and Institutional Knowledge

Problem:

State capacity is ultimately about people, and the public workforce is stretched thin, aging, and losing institutional knowledge as experienced staff retire. New hires onboard slowly because the knowledge they need lives in colleagues’ heads or in scattered, outdated manuals. Every other use case in this post runs through these same overstretched employees. Augmenting their knowledge and talent with AI tools is capacity-building in the most direct sense.

How AI Can Help:

• Copilots that help civil servants draft memos, navigate internal policy, and answer routine questions without pulling a senior colleague off their own work.

• Capturing and making searchable the institutional knowledge of departing employees before they leave.

• Faster onboarding through tools that let new hires query “how do we do X here” and get an accurate, sourced answer.

• Offloading rote tasks (data entry, summarizing case files, scheduling) that drive burnout and turnover.

How to mitigate risk:

These tools must be used as augmentation and not for headcount reduction. Using them as a path to layoffs would only degrade the inputs, skills, and verifications that the AI tools depend on. As with all the other use cases, validate internal answers against authoritative sources.

Cutting Through Red Tape and Streamlining Processes

Problem:

We currently face a crisis of effectiveness in government, and AI is coming at the right time to help reduce procedural bloat, revamp government systems, and aid both local and federal bodies to better govern.

Regulatory codes accumulate over time but rarely get pruned, leaving duplicative, contradictory, or obsolete rules on the books. Application systems are fragmented across agencies, so a business opening a restaurant files the same information five times to five offices.

One example is the Code of Federal Regulations, which has grown from 9,745 pages in 1950 to 194,395 today, roughly twentyfold, and holding about 1.08 million distinct restrictions. To expect any process subject to these federal regulations to be able to move quickly when subjected to so many restrictions is unrealistic.

Excitingly, Governor Hochul recently announced a partnership to do this exact kind of outdated code-cutting in New York.

How AI Can Help:

• Inventorying and mapping an entire regulatory regime to flag duplicative or dead rules for human review.

• Pre-scanning applications to alert applicants to likely problem areas and forecasting realistic timelines.

• Unifying separated application portals into one front door. Even where the consolidation itself is not AI, AI can sit on top: a single conversational intake that routes a request to the right agencies and pre-fills downstream forms from one set of answers.

• Automating routine internal paperwork (data entry, cross-referencing, status updates) that consumes staff hours.

How to mitigate risk:

AI flags candidate rules to cut; humans and the proper rulemaking process decide. Don’t let “the model said it was redundant” become a shortcut around required public comment or legal review. Pilot on one agency before scaling, and keep an audit trail of what was changed and why. Of course, proper training and development of back-end structures like connected data pipelines and cleaned databases is necessary for such benefits to be unlocked.

Policy Evaluation

Problem:

Government rarely checks whether its own laws and programs work. Retrospective review of enacted legislation or policies is exceedingly rare, evaluation data is scattered across agencies, and fiscal projections are rarely revisited against actual outcomes.

Take the NYC Council, which passes many laws carrying large fiscal impacts on the city budget every year. Rarely are the estimated costs of their legislation actually verified, and never is the body held accountable for these costs stacked onto agencies every year. Tools like my NYC Fiscal Impact Statement tracker can help with oversight and evaluation of legislation.

Relatedly, test-and-learn is another big area of opportunity. Laws are usually enacted with little advance testing, so edge cases and unintended consequences are discovered only after they cause harm, often years into implementation. As Pahlka mentioned in her post, “If an advocate can stress-test a policy against thousands of edge cases before it gets enacted, the standard for what counts as due diligence in lawmaking starts to move”.

How AI Can Help:

• Synthesizing program outcome data across agencies to estimate what is actually working.

• Scanning thousands of pages of audits, reports, and agency filings to surface underperforming or redundant programs.

• Natural-language querying of administrative datasets so a staffer can ask a question instead of commissioning a study.

• Stress-testing draft legislation against thousands of hypothetical scenarios and edge cases before enactment.

• Red-teaming proposed rules: prompting a model to find the loopholes, perverse incentives, and groups a draft accidentally excludes.

• Rapid drafting and iteration so legislative staff can revise text and immediately re-test.

How to mitigate risk:

AI surfaces correlations, not causation – so treat its output only as leads to investigate. Keep methodology transparent, validate against ground-truth data, and guard against optimizing for whatever metric is easiest to measure rather than what matters.

Simulations are only as good as their assumptions, so they supplement real-world piloting rather than replace it. Document the assumptions behind any stress test, and treat surprising results as questions for experts and not conclusions.

Conclusion

The first step for state capacity to improve is to recognize that better tools and solutions exist. My hope with this article is to surface how AI has rapidly changed the solution set on what it takes to solve current challenges in the public realm. The above examples highlight just a portion of the possibilities.

For public bodies like city agencies or state governments to truly harness these new possibilities, the way our institutions function will have to change. Procurement processes and regulations determining how civil servants work must be updated.

We need to develop frameworks that allow for the rapid implementation of AI in government, and in public adoption of privately created civic technology, while mitigating risks. Refusing to recognize or utilize new technology because of its potential downsides does not work. Neither will trying to integrate this new technology with outdated ways of work, which will only block the benefits and amplify the downsides.

We also need more and better legislation to construct a coherent AI policy, in New York and nationally. Agencies, local governing bodies, and individuals can all benefit from AI being integrated into digital service delivery and other public services, but the wide scope of impact requires deliberate construction of processes.

Ignoring AI and not passing any legislation regarding proper use or failing to set-up systems to respond to potential labor market fallout is becoming increasingly dangerous for trust and confidence in public institutions.

How these AI models will continue to develop and what new tools and use cases will be possible just months from now is anyone’s guess. But what’s clear is that they are already capable enough to support and enhance government goals from policy research and writing to digital public service delivery and even the tricky regulations space.

More and more, state capacity will become synonymous with the implementation of these types of tools by both independent actors and government itself.

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I recently published an article through Streetsblog on why Clinton Street requires a street redesign to deal with its overwhelming traffic volumes. Please read the piece here!

With permission, I am publishing below a longer version of that article. Consider the Streetsblog version the what-you-need-to-know, and this Substack version a deeper dive that includes more discussion of Low Traffic Neighborhood design principles and additional Clinton Street traffic data.

The Lower East Side (LES) in Manhattan is one of the most dense, walkable neighborhoods in New York City. Take a stroll around its historic streets – Orchard Street, Ludlow Street, Essex Street, and so on – and regardless of the time of day or season of the year, you will see the sidewalks full of pedestrians.

In fact, the LES streets are famously and historically known for their lively street activity. And while the neighborhood is not quite as crowded as it was in those peak 20th-century immigration days, lively streets remain a LES hallmark. Yet the design of the streets themselves does not support the needs or current utilization by residents, over 80% of whom do not own a car.

One particularly egregious case is the segment of Clinton Street between Delancey Street and Houston Street. This single corridor receives 4-6x the vehicular traffic of its neighboring streets, despite being of a similar width and packed with pedestrians due to its mixed-use nature, boasting both commercial and residential uses.

Clinton Street cannot continue to manage 16,000 cars per day entering it. The astonishingly high volume of vehicular traffic on this road, combined with its equally high usage by pedestrians and cyclists, has resulted in a dangerous and untenable situation. Intersections on this corridor have been rife with crashes resulting in pedestrian injuries, and locals encounter traffic jams throughout the day, impeding residents’ mobility and worsening quality of life for those with and without a car.

I’ve written before about how the LES is a prime location for a Low Traffic Neighborhood (LTN). LTNs achieve less traffic (including on the boundary roads they funnel cars towards) and fewer casualties simultaneously by redesigning residential streets using proven urban planning principles. The strategic arrangement of local roads allows for flexibility in each neighborhood’s LTN design by removing dangerous through-traffic while prioritizing residents’ needs. You can read more about what LTNs are and the evidence on how they improve the health, safety, and economic outcomes for residents here.

In this post, I would like to make the case for why Clinton Street presents an excellent candidate for an LTN redesign. By making a few minor but pivotal changes to the design of the roadway, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) could transform life for both residents and the many tourists and visitors who frequent this street in the heart of the LES. Key to this is one simple change: removing vehicle access from a single point on Clinton Street.

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The Primary Culprit: The Williamsburg Bridge Off-Ramp

Anyone who lives in the LES or has spent time around the section of the City around Delancey Street can immediately point to why traffic on Clinton Street is so much higher than neighboring streets: the Williamsburg Bridge off-ramp. For vehicles traversing this East River bridge from Brooklyn’s Williamsburg to Manhattan’s LES, the first opportunity to exit the bridge roadway is to make a right turn onto Clinton Street.

Drivers coming off the four-lane road on the bridge turn directly onto a one-lane, one-way roadway shared with a bike path and busy sidewalks on either side. This leads to a dangerous situation where cars are often barreling onto the local road or speeding through the red light entirely. On that same off-ramp are heavily utilized crosswalks and bike paths often packed with cyclists and pedestrians navigating the Williamsburg Bridge entrance themselves. Further, in the immediate area are dozens of bars, restaurants, a public school (P.S. 140), and a public park (Hamilton Fish Park).

The result has been dozens of crashes leading to dozens of pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist injuries as well as a handful of fatalities in the past decade. The Clinton-Delancey intersection is one of the most dangerous in all of the LES. And while the Mayor made headlines in his first week by paving over the infamous Williamsburg Bridge bike bump, nothing has been done to address the situation at the nearby intersections that have caused a constant stream of injuries and deaths.

A Small, Residential Street Clogged With Pass-Through Traffic

The Williamsburg Bridge carries a major thoroughfare, connecting to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, thus providing one of the primary means of car travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn. This means there is a constant procession of traffic trying to utilize this off-ramp, as multiple lanes of traffic converge onto this single-lane road.

During many hours of the day, drivers do not actually enter speedily onto Clinton Street, because there is simply too much traffic to allow doing so. Using the DOT’s data, we can see that there are elevated vehicle counts on this segment of the Williamsburg Bridge crossing Clinton Street throughout the entire typical weekday. Despite being a one-way road, the corridor sees at least double, and compared to many other streets, 4-10x the amount of cars as bordering roads.

The vast majority of these cars are not driven by residents. The latest US Census ACS data shows that only 5.5% of LES residents commute to work by car. At the same time, among the top 311 complaints for Clinton Street are: illegal parking, street/sidewalk noise, for-hire vehicle complaints, and traffic. Residents are suffering from the noise and crowdedness effects of a small street being used by pass-through traffic without benefitting from the roadway access.

Of course, there are many more businesses and restaurants on Clinton St compared to the neighboring streets like Attorney and Norfolk. Trucks supplying these restaurants and customers taking cars or rideshares to frequent these stores undoubtedly contribute to the traffic volume. But ultimately, the data shows vehicles coming off the bridge are by far the biggest factor contributing to current conditions. A redesign of the street, particularly reducing Williamsburg Bridge traffic turning onto Clinton Street, could dramatically improve living standards while maintaining access to delivery and emergency vehicles.

Clinton Street Is Primed for a Low Traffic Neighborhood Redesign

A few minor changes to the road to reduce congestion along Clinton Street can make it a safer, more enjoyable pedestrian experience while simultaneously improving accessibility for residents and trucks supplying businesses. This is the concept embodied by LTNs, which propose cost-effective street redesigns utilizing paint on the ground and cheap flexposts to re-route traffic.

The benefits of LTNs are numerous. According to Open Plans, previous LTNs have resulted in a 46.9% drop in overall traffic volume and a 1.6% decrease on boundary roads. They have led to 50% reduction in car-related casualties, a 10-18% reduction in crime, 5.7% decrease in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide, and 25% more active travel. In London, LTNs prevented 37 deaths and half a million sick days annually. Redirecting vehicles that would have used Clinton Street simply to pass through to other neighborhoods could bring similar benefits to the LES.

Directly north of this section of Clinton Street, when it crosses Houston Street, it becomes Avenue B. In my previous post arguing for an Avenue B LTN, I wrote about how Avenue B is a diverse, dense urban street featuring an amalgamation of public schools, restaurants and bars, community gardens, and homes (sound familiar?). DOT Street User Count data found an average of 5x as many pedestrians on Avenue B as cars at peak hours, and equal numbers of bikes as cars. Residents have also shown a desire for improved pedestrian access, with 65% of 2021 Vision Survey respondents wanting the avenue to be permanently redesigned to be more pedestrian-friendly.

While the same data is not available for the southern portion of Avenue B (Clinton Street), it is a safe assumption that the street utilization and NYC DOT survey results are just as true for the same road in the blocks south of Houston Street as they are in the blocks just north of it. Yet while Avenue B is receiving an extensive redesign by the DOT, no changes are planned for Clinton Street right next door.

The major plank of Clinton Street’s redesign should be the removal of the dangerous Manhattan-bound Williamsburg Bridge off-ramp onto Clinton Street. Vehicles desiring to turn north into Manhattan can instead be routed onto Essex Street and Allen Street. These nearby streets can safely accommodate a much higher volume of traffic. Clinton Street itself would remain open to local residents and delivery vehicles, but without the endless procession of pass-through traffic clogging roads and endangering pedestrians.

Establishing permanent LTNs provides the greatest potential for pedestrian safety and permanent improvement in residential livability while capitalizing on cost-efficient solutions and lower administrative overhead in the long term. DOT should extend its current Avenue B redesign several blocks south (the current proposal covers East 4th to East 12th Streets) and include the connected Clinton Street segment down to Delancey Street.

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Given just two hours to build, my expectations for actual results were low. But as each team showcased their projects at the end of the night, I, along with the rest of the audience, was struck by a realization: AI has completely transformed development timelines, and skilled technologists guided by experienced public servants can now construct solutions to long-standing government gaps in a matter of hours.

Read more here about our takeaways from the event and project highlights. Projects ranged from a playable 311 complaints videogame to a dashboard mapping NYC flood burden against flood-resilience capital spending to an encyclopedia of NYC civic data. Subscribe to the State Capacity Ecosystem (SCE) Substack for updates on future hackathons and other events.

State Capacity Ecosystem

AI should be a tool for inclusive building. It’s time for government to claim it.

At our State Capacity hackathon last week, a team used NYC OpenData and AI to build a dashboard that maps every flood in New York City against every dollar the city has committed to flood resilience including a live replay of a real storm from May 20th, with sensors lighting up across the boroughs and subway lines going red as floodwaters hit the tracks…

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a month ago · 2 likes · State Capacity Ecosystem Team

It has never been easier for individuals to affect change and solve problems for the public. Anyone with access to an AI model and a willingness to explore the available data can plug in holes where there are missing public services or address information gaps.

Of course, building a new tech tool is only one part of the process for any project aimed at public adoption. The hard part of deploying government software is the unglamorous part: data privacy, security review, accessibility/508 compliance, integration with legacy systems, uptime, and maintenance after the volunteer moves on. But the outdated and overly complex rules that govern deployment in government, and make all these steps excruciatingly drawn out and confusing, is exactly the problem.

The SCE Substack article covers this new paradigm and its implications, and where we see our new community playing a role. In this post, I wanted to address some additional thoughts I had following the hackathon about what it means for state capacity moving forward.

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Government needs more tech-driven builders

State capacity is the government’s ability to actually do what it sets out to do, from issuing a permit to running a benefits program. It is well-known that across local, state, and federal government, state capacity in the U.S. has fallen behind the public’s needs. A multitude of public institutions are largely unable to achieve their stated goals in a timely, cost-effective, or consistent manner.

The good news is that there is a growing ecosystem of practitioners, technologists, researchers, funders, civic organizations, and public sector actors all working on adjacent aspects of institutional effectiveness and public sector innovation. Momentum has been growing to bring government institutions into the 21st-century and prepare it to tackle the problems of the future.

However, this ecosystem remains fragmented and each of the component actors are weakly connected. As a result, promising solutions are diffusing far too slowly.

Operational knowledge is not widely shared and organizations duplicate efforts needlessly. Extraordinary talent struggles to identify pathways into the work while local implementation capacity develops unevenly. Public institutions are unable to access or implement the solutions created by external actors. Private actors are unable to work directly with relevant public bodies.

This coordination problem is what inspired Henry, Jeremie, and me to create the State Capacity Ecosystem Hub. Our hope is that people will use our new tool to discover new opportunities to plug-in to the state capacity ecosystem, surface new connections to address major policy needs, and ultimately form a more cohesive network of actors that can coordinate and collaborate on their work and its uses in the public sphere.

The system is ripe for change

At our hackathon, over 20 teams of civic tech builders launched their own AI-driven solutions to various state capacity problems. As verified by the public sector experts present, many of these projects created valuable solutions to real needs that government has been unable to address itself for many years now.

Building tools that facilitate digital service delivery, information transparency, and allow for public advocacy is now easier than ever. The new bottleneck is in adoption: a fragmented ecosystem, and on the government side a broken procurement and implementation pipeline, mean that these valuable tools never reach the agencies that need them.

As Jennifer Pahlka writes in her piece here, we need faster and smarter procurement that preserves the necessary safeguards, so that new and changing technology applications, like using AI to fix websites and government tools, can actually be implemented instead of relying on vendors to make changes, which takes months and costs ridiculous amounts. Technology itself can even be used to fix procurement rules (such as by identifying where they are needlessly complex or redundant), but you need to update those rules in the first place to allow government to unlock the value of AI and new technologies.

The key to improving state capacity moving forward, then, is two-fold:

1. unshackling agencies and other government bodies to easily adopt and adapt tools built by outsiders (and to more easily develop and deploy their own tools)

2. designing these AI-driven, citizen-created tools to be implementable by public bodies, which includes ensuring they are carefully designed even as they are rapidly built

Whether it’s an agency adopting someone’s interactive dashboard built on open data or a legislative body integrating a meeting transcriber and summarizer into its archives, the new opportunities for crowd-sourced enhancements of government capabilities are energizing.

But to achieve this, we need an organized, concentrated push to reform government processes to allow them to speedily adopt modern solutions to long-standing problems. And we need more interaction and dialogue between civic tech builders and government practitioners. Only through this dialogue can we construct pathways for adopting AI-driven tools that handle the tricky questions of accountability and ownership of maintenance.

To figure out the proper answers to these questions, we need to experiment and learn and iterate. Our hackathon event and the SCE hub are only the beginnings of our work to bring about this new era of state capacity that will be defined by greater collaboration between civic technologists and government institutions.

In addition to expanding the hub, we are planning to host more events like the state capacity hackathon that create opportunities for technologists and government practitioners to directly share ideas and build solutions together.

If these possibilities are enticing to you, come join the movement and help us create more capable governments and more democratic institutions. Let’s grab coffee, connect virtually, swap ideas, or collaborate on projects. Let’s work together to make government work better.

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Any opinions expressed below are solely my own and do not represent the views of Manhattan Community Board 3.

Find your community district and key information about it here.

Manhattan Community Board 3 Jun 2026 Full Board Meeting

Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026 - 6:30pm

PS 20 - 166 Essex Street

Meeting Highlights:

• Welcome new members of Manhattan Community Board 3!

Notes from board meeting:

Public Session

• Owner of Mary O’s has been threatened with being ticketed by an unknown individual for having lines that go out onto the sidewalk

  • District Manager confirmed that Mary O’s is not breaking the law

• Residents spoke against the opening of a new 24/7 intake center in the district due to possibility of crime and danger it could bring to the neighborhood

  • residents requesting more information and to have a voice in the decision to open this intake center

Elected Officials Reports

• District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Liaison

  • 147 guns bought back at the recent gun buy back event, most in Manhattan history

• Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s Liaison

  • Two World Cup watch parties happening in Manhattan hosted by the BP’s office:

    • Central Park, 5 PM, Bahamas vs England

    • United Palace, 7:30 PM, Colombia vs Portugal

• Assemblymember Grace Lee’s Liaison

  • State budget was extremely overdue this year, is now done but came in much later than expected

• Assemblymember Keith Powers’ Liaison

  • Highlighted four pieces of legislation that passed in the most recent session

• State Senator Brian Kavanagh’s Liaison

  • Passed 38 bills through the State Senate this year

  • This year’s State budget includes over $1 billion in capital funding

  • Maximum income threshold for SCRIE and DRIE Rent Freeze programs moved from $50,000 to $75,000

• Councilmember Harvey Epstein - attended!

Board Reports

• District Manager’s Report

  • Reminder that community boards are city agencies, making community board members part-time public servants

  • City is working with MCB3 to resolve the delivery bike workers situation on E 7th Street

    • no known solution yet, but the current administration is working on it, including finding a better long-term solution for bike storage

Committee Reports

See Committee Meeting recordings here!

• Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency

  • Resolution in support of naming a section of Tompkins Square Park after skateboarder Harold Hunter will likely come next month, awaiting guidance from NYC Parks on the proper way to rename a section of a park

• Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment

  • DOT presented on their new e-bike charging initiative

    • 25 sites across the city, 5 in MCB3 propose with 2-3 likely to be selected

  • Two new inter-city bus stop applications applying to make stops in MCB3, one coming from Cincinnati, Ohio and the other from Atlantic City, New Jersey

• Health, Seniors, & Human Services / Youth, Education, & Human Rights

  • Newly opened housing for seniors 55+ years old who are formerly homeless and for survivors of domestic violence on E 2nd Street

• Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing

  • Resolution involving recommendations for what to include in an RFP for management of the Essex Street market

• Landmarks Committee

  • Resolution supporting the replacement of deteriorated vinyl windows with aluminum windows at St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church

  • Resolution approving continuing maintenance plan required for air rights transfer to 50-64 Third Avenue from St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery

    • this is the first time this process is occurring, with newly relaxed requirements for the air rights transfer process under City of Yes!

• Cannabis Task Force

  • Resolution to approve the cannabis license for MAD GIO & Proper Prints LLC at 68 Clinton Street

• Personnel Task Force

  • Two resolutions for MCB3 staff salary increases for the community associates, to provide a $2,000 raise

    • Senior Community Associate: $56,423 → $58,423

    • Community Associate: $50,000 → $52,000

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New York City may be in its most pro-building era since the passage of the reigning zoning resolution in 1961.

One piece of evidence that we are in this new, pro-housing and pro-transit growth era can be found in messaging by both the current Governor and Mayor: Hochul’s Let Them Build program and Mamdani’s relentless hammering on the affordability crisis issue while campaigning (and continuing on through today). It is no coincidence that the Mayor was swept to victory on this platform and that the Governor appears poised to do the same this fall.

For further evidence, just take a look at a partial selection of recent and planned progress on transit and housing:

Transit:

• The 7 train extension to Hudson Yards (and all of present-day Hudson Yard’s towers)

• Phase 1 & 2 of the Second Avenue Subway

• The Interborough Express

• Moynihan Train Hall & Penn Station renovation and expansion

• East side access & Penn Access1

Housing:

• Passage of the City of Yes bills

• Voter approval of the 2025 Charter Revision Commission housing ballot proposals

• Mayor Mamdani’s Block by Block Housing Plan

• Inclusion and passage of SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) reform in the New York State FY27 budget

The political will to build is clearly there. The constraint is no longer whether NYC wants to build, but whether it can build fast and cheap enough to make a real difference.

On the housing front, recent legislative wins have not yet translated to significant growth in new units, though the rate of new housing development has picked up. The number of potential new units allowed by just the 2024 City of Yes rezonings (~82,000 new units) is more than the additional housing added by all previous rezonings over the past two decades (~70,000 new units).

Yet much, much more building will be needed, not only for housing but for New York’s transportation, energy infrastructure, and streets.

The amount of new housing in development is still not nearly as much as was built by NYC in previous decades or enough to meet projected population demands. Important questions about where public funds should go to best support transit – free buses or more subway extensions – remain hotly debated. While pro-building, pro-growth politicians are finally pushing policies in the necessary direction, much more will be needed to dig the city out of the infrastructure hole it ended up in from decades of underinvestment.

Let’s take a look at upcoming opportunities New York has to tackle these intertwined fronts of the affordability crisis, what it could be doing better, and how recent policy developments have unlocked growth.

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More Rezonings and Development Around Transit

Mayor Mamdani recently released the Block by Block: The Housing Plan for A New Era, which covers many strategies to make NYC more affordable. The plan lays out a vision for 200,000 new housing units and preserving another 200,000 existing units over the next decade.

While the strategies involve everything from improved tenant protections to community land trust investment, a particularly exciting element is enabling transit-oriented development (TOD). TOD is a building block for providing accessibility for all New Yorkers, maximizing the benefit of new housing by placing it right next to transportation nodes. Optimizing the placement of new units by coordinating them around transit hubs also serves as a double win for affordability.

Thanks to the passage of City of Yes, the largest update to the zoning resolution since the 1960s, there is now greater opportunity for adding density around transit stations. Paired with the Affordable Housing Fast Track created by the 2025 CRC proposals, new housing can be built faster and in the places that best connect residents to jobs and opportunities.

Many other currently transit-rich communities have been stymied from growing by outdated zoning regulations that remain in place. One prime candidate is the area south of Prospect Park, for which the Mamdani administration recently announced rezoning plans along portions of McDonald Avenue and Coney Island Avenue. Both these streets have great transit access, with the F, G, B, and Q lines nearby, but need to be freed from outdated zoning regulations to actually create new housing in the area.

While these are the first neighborhoods to be targeted for upzoning by the current Mayor, they certainly cannot be the last. The Mayor should look at further options on where to add TOD, especially in parts of the city where growth is forecasted to happen at the greatest rate.2 Adding housing in these neighborhoods will go the furthest in addressing affordability. One upcoming candidate is the corridor of neighborhoods that will receive new transit access from the IBX (see more below).

Electeds representing neighborhoods that are prime candidates for rezoning should also keep in mind that they can’t shift all societal needs purely onto housing developments. Too many asks result in housing becoming unaffordable to build and drastically elongated timelines. With each proposed housing development, there needs to be discussion of what the housing can solve and what needs to be addressed by other means.

These discussions can and should include residents, community boards, Councilmembers, and citywide officials. But such involved parties would do well to remember that voters spoke overwhelmingly in the last election that they want more housing. While there are challenges with determining where and how to build the new housing, there are also challenges due to delays and inaction. Costs go up, further maintenance is needed for older housing stock, public sentiment shifts against the government, and lost trust further blocks the ability to act.

The MTA needs to build faster and cheaper

It is no secret that New York’s transit capital construction costs are among the highest in the world. Cost per mile of new track, for one oft-cited metric, is wildly higher than other major cities. Tackling these costs and finding ways to make transit funds go further will be key to expanding the MTA’s portfolio.

Streamlined state environmental review, passed in the FY27 State budget, can be a massive opportunity for the MTA. The reduced timelines created by SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) reform can take months, if not years, off development timelines and reduce uncertainty in approvals, further lowering costs. One immediate application is speeding up the tunneling for the Second Avenue subway extension. When timelines are shortened and costs go down across the board, the scope of transit projects can be increased and more projects can be pursued.

Being clear about scope upfront through capital planning is another money-saving tool the MTA has yielded well in recent years. One example is switching station elevators from stopping in a mezzanine level to having the go direct to the platforms. This one small change that was planned ahead of station construction has saved the MTA hundreds of millions. Planning ahead reduces costs and identifies areas for innovation.

Of course, the unpredictability of funding increases costs. Recent transit projects in the region have unfortunately dealt with not even receiving funds that are obligated to them. The hope is that future funding decisions will become less arbitrary and more consistent. On some levels, this is not up to the city, state, or MTA. But in other cases there are opportunities for local actors to do more.

For example, the predictability of zoning in new areas following City of Yes is an opportunity to cross-subsidize transit developments in those neighborhoods. Developers know they will be able to build in these areas and can unlock financing. Continued rezonings and new transit projects will increase land values and provide opportunities for new financing.

New Funding Sources to Unlock Capital

The MTA relies more on public funds for both maintenance and expansion projects than many other major transit authorities, and that funding has not been consistent historically. TfL (London’s transportation governing body), for one example, is much more fare box supported than the MTA. As a result, TfL can better finance its state of good repair through fares, and then use government funding to pay for capital projects.

One encouraging sign here has been the re-authorization of land value tax around new transit. Land value tax is a great source of funding, as is value capture by public agencies. Publicly acquiring property, sitting on it while increasing the value of the land, and then disposing of it afterwards for a profit has been a key strategy for the MTA. One example is at 125th St/Park and 125th St/Lexington: the MTA acquired these lots, got them rezoned, and will be able to sell these properties once the Second Avenue expansion is complete.

This will bring in tremendous value, but it is not enough.

People speculate where they foresee new transit, and those who get in early capture much of the benefit. To combat this, the State can go even further than land value tax authorizations, such as with automatic upzoning around new transit and automatic land value capture when new transit uplifts values.

A Perfect Opportunity to Deliver Affordability: The Interborough Express

Transit improvements and expansions must be talked about incessantly, decade after decade, to bring them to fruition. Ideas that seemed fantasies decades ago are becoming reality today, but only through persistence and moving toward their acceptance.

A shining example of this is the Interborough Express (IBX). The IBX began as an idea proposed by the Regional Plan Association (RPA) in 1996. Only in 2022 did Governor Hochul provide key support to move the IBX forward, and it is now in its environmental study phase.

The IBX will add 14-miles of above-ground track with new stations, connections to 17 subway lines, the LIRR, and buses in Brooklyn and Queens. The connections and accessibility improvements will bring new transit, housing, economic development to many Brooklyn and Queens communities.

Excitingly, many of the planned and proposed transit projects in the MTA’s portfolio are using existing right-of-way and legacy tunneling, strategies that will reduce both timeline and overall costs to deliver new transit options relatively fast and cheap for the city. Pursuing such strategies in coordination with the advanced planning and value capture tools listed above could result in returns to the MTA and public funds many times what it costs to build.

In line with this, it is encouraging to see that the MTA is being very conscious about where to place stations, collaborating with the NYC DOT on design and urban planning around the stations. More recent versions of the IBX plan have removed unnecessary stations, bringing down expected costs without affecting the expected 160,000 daily ridership estimated.

The MTA, the City, and the State must continue to coordinate transit investment with investment in the streets around transit as well. This means looking at affected neighborhoods for potential upzoning and coordinating transit improvements with other infrastructure upgrades. The end goal of any transportation project is creating vibrant places that people want to be and creating new housing and jobs. Transportation is the greatest facilitator of that, and no opportunity on this scale should be wasted by lack of ambition.

Conclusion

The affordability crisis that has increasingly restricted New York’s growth and become its defining problem in the 21st century is finally being taken seriously by elected and appointed leaders. Pro-building policies have not just been empty words and promises on the campaign trail. Nor are they original to the current politicians in charge.

Determined efforts by elected officials and by leaders at agencies including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) over the past several administrations have unlocked housing and transportation opportunities across the City.

More will be needed not only to bring NYC’s transportation and housing infrastructure up to modern times but also to prepare it for continued growth and success in the future.

For the many different transportation and housing projects of recent years to truly effect change, they will need to come together in a comprehensive system. For improving transit, this means looking at not just single street redesigns or individual station improvements, but constructing connected networks of redesigned streets and transit options. Low Traffic Neighborhoods and the strategies listed in the Transit Priority Atlas provide two lenses for how to successfully reconfigure streets.

With housing, rezonings and new developments need to occur citywide. Isolated upzonings or individual housing projects cannot solve the affordability crisis. Only through comprehensive zoning changes and the construction of a variety of housing types can rent and home prices be brought into check.

Options for reducing building costs in New York are numerous and must be further explored. Property tax reform would reduce costs for many residents today, while permitting reform would further speed up development timelines, bringing costs down in the future. Common sense reform of the building code, like expanding single-stair allowance and reducing elevator minimums would further expand housing supply and reduce development costs.

And lastly, without consideration of the labor market and incentivizing mid- and high-paying jobs to be created and based in New York, the entire affordability program falls apart. For NYC to continue to grow, it needs a dynamic economy that provides opportunities across industries and occupations.

Fortunately, providing more housing and transit options will better connect people to job opportunities. Elected officials and city agencies must be proud of transit expansions and new housing developments. New stations and transit access create jobs and huge amounts of value. A new station can give a neighborhood new life. New housing, new transit, and new jobs all enable each other in a virtuous cycle.

May we be at the very start of this cycle and do what we can to keep pushing the ball forward.

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I wanted to share that I have a piece out with Vital City today on a topic that I and many others have been banging the drum on: NYC’s stagnant job creation and the growing issues with where the new jobs are coming from.

Since I first wrote about the danger of this limited and concentrated job growth, there has been growing attention and worry, but still little action. At a recent City Council hearing, Council leader Julie Menin asked where the Mayor’s job plan is and what the strategy is to fuel job creation. At the same time, Mayor Mamdani has yet to name a CEO for the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is a key engine of economic growth the City should utilize.

Mayor Mamdani ran on an affordability platform and has shown he cares deeply about addressing NYC’s affordability crisis through plans on housing and transit. The third leg of this affordability stool that must be tackled is jobs. Creating high-paying jobs based in New York will be necessary to truly mitigate the affordability crisis, while also helping to shore up chronic city budget gaps moving forward.

Please check out my article in Vital City on why where new jobs are being created matters and strategies the Mamdani administration can pursue to revive high-paying job growth in NYC.

And look out for more to come on this topic soon!

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TL;DR:

The State Capacity Ecosystem Hub is live.

• Search (in Beta) curates a personalized view of who’s working on your specific areas of interest

• Directory lists >300 orgs focused on government effectiveness and what they’re working on

• Connect lets you add what you’re working on, seek and share opportunities, and find collaborators

• Affinity helps you find surprise relationships between organizations, so you know who to work with

Two key things to do right now:

• Submit yourself to Connect — tell us what you’re working on and what you need; we’ll curate a living database of challenges, funding opportunities, and practitioner partners

• Sign up for our first event, a CivicTech AI Hackathon — June 24, 5:30- 9 p.m.

Why we’re building the Ecosystem

Good policy fails because the practitioners, technologists, researchers, and funders working to fix government are operating in silos, without a clear view of each other and with few collaboration pathways. Great talent is left out of the conversation, not by intent, but because it simply cannot find its way in.

We believe visibility is infrastructure. A clear map of who is doing what is the first step toward State Capacity acting like an ecosystem and not just a collection of isolated players.

Our goal is to help create that well-functioning ecosystem: one where every participant knows what the others are doing, sees them as collaborators rather than competitors, and can access shared knowledge and resources when they need them. Great theory gets operationalized. Hard-won practitioner knowledge travels. Capital flows toward the gaps, not just the familiar names.

Overview of the Tools

Search (Beta), located on the Hub, returns results relevant to you based on a mad libs-style interface that allows you to select your role, what you’re seeking, a problem area, and a geography. This feature can only show what currently exists, and will improve as we add more organizations and individual connections.

Directory offers you a view of all the organizations in the Ecosystem. Use it to understand who is working on what. Filter based on segment, problem statements, geographic focus, and more. It offers a more holistic view than Search’s curation.

Connect is the layer we’re most excited about. Find real people and organizations working on problems you care about. More importantly, submit what you’re working on so that others can find you. Together, we’ll curate a living, breathing picture of who’s working on what in the Ecosystem.

Affinity helps you find surprising relationships between organizations based on shared problem areas, overlapping funding sources, and description similarity. Use that knowledge to re-envision who you can work with and on what.

About the event

On June 24, we’re hosting a one-evening hackathon for civic technologists, government practitioners, students, and anyone else who wants to build tools that help strengthen our government’s ability to deliver.

The goal is connection, not perfection. Find collaborators interested in the same topics. Build quick, working prototypes that take ideas from -1 to 0 and show whether an idea is worth pursuing. See if someone in attendance can help connect you to the right folks to turn that idea into something real.

Check out the event page for more information.

How you can help

When we delivered the first version of the Ecosystem, we effectively shared a list of orgs, and an incomplete one at that. Folks appreciated the clarity it brought to who is working on State Capacity, but there was no way to act on that clarity. Dozens of follow-on conversations informed how to make our map more useful: living problem statements, the ability to find collaborators, and hosting live events move us from theory to action.

Chances are this version of the Ecosystem isn’t perfect either. You can keep helping us improve it. Add your organization and your problem statement. Join our events and host your own. Reach out with feedback.

Our hope is that our work echoes the lessons of State Capacity: agile delivery, test and learn methodologies, shared evidence, scalable results.

The closing message

Delivering State Capacity may be hard, but the roadblocks aren’t mysterious: they’re structural. Knowledge doesn’t travel because there’s no infrastructure for it to travel on. Capital concentrates because funders fund what they can see. Practitioners work in isolation because isolation is the default.

This is why we’ve built the Ecosystem, but it is only as helpful as the community behind it. And there are a million other ways folks can build out the infrastructure further in their own ways.

The State Capacity Ecosystem already exists. It just needs to act like one. Let’s build it together.

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Any opinions expressed below are solely my own and do not represent the views of Manhattan Community Board 3.

Find your community district and key information about it here.

Manhattan Community Board 3 May 2026 Full Board Meeting

Tuesday, May 26, 2026 - 6:30pm

PS 20 - 166 Essex Street

Meeting Highlights:

• Kimlau Square arch: MCB3 passed a resolution supporting the relocation of the Kimlau Square Memorial Arch as part of the square’s redesign, with some debate over whether there had been adequate public engagement

• Canal Street redesign delayed: DOT extended the timeline on the Canal Street redesign and will not take the scheduled vote in June. No new target date was announced.

• Delivery worker e-bike storage: One app company has expressed interest in funding indoor bike storage for delivery workers on E 11th Street

• St. Mark’s bike lane: MCB3 passed a resolution supporting a new protected bike lane on St. Mark’s Place between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A

Notes from board meeting:

Public Session

• Middlechurch shared their plans for the empty lot at 112 2nd Avenue

  • creating a new community space with an event stage, green space, historic facade elements retained

• On 6/3 6 PM there will be a candidates’ forum for the upcoming primary elections

  • will feature a discussion between all State-level candidates running in the Community District 3 area

• Another candidate forum this Friday focused on candidates running to represent the area between Montgomery St and the Battery, from Congress to State Assembly

  

• Spring Awakening Festival is happening this Saturday 12-4 PM, on Avenue B open street

  • there will be a parade, dancing, music, children’s pony rides, and more!

• On Wednesday, 6/10 there will be the annual Village Awards, which honors longstanding community leaders/institutions

• Opposition from community members to the redesign of Kimlau Square and moving the arch

• Voting for the People’s Money, citywide participatory budgeting, is currently underway

  • anyone 11+ years old and living in NYC is eligible to vote

• Civic Engagement Commission representative shared new initiative with National Civic League to improve how public meetings are run

  • beginning with studying one board in every borough, the start of a year-long study process

  • expecting the first report to come out in July based on surveys of community board members

Elected Officials Reports

• Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s Liaison

  • BP is dedicating his entire capital budget to arts and culture, calling it the Manhattan Multiplier for Arts and Culture

  • opening a welcome center in the northern Manhattan office

  • offering discretionary grants of up to $20k to nonprofits operating in Manhattan

  • Manhattan community board applications are done, list of appointments has been finalized, will be announced by the end of the week

• Congressmember Dan Goldman’s Liaison

  • Introduced the After School For All Act that will create universal after-school programs, to be funded by 1% increase to corporate income tax

  • Introduced legislation to ban surveillance pricing on food apps

• Assemblymember Grace Lee’s Liaison

  • Many bills progressing through the Assembly

• Assemblymember Keith Powers’ Liaison

  • Introduced bill to prevent incidents of drink spiking happening across NYC

• State Senator Brian Kavanagh’s Liaison

  • hosting two mobile office hours next month — on 6/10 6 PM and on 6/24 9 AM-12 PM

    • providing assistance with getting in touch with City or State agencies

  • Introduced legislation to create a new criminal charge for intentional and repeated tenant harassment, Class E felony with a maximum of 7 years in prison

• Councilmember Harvey Epstein - attended

  • Mayor released the City Executive Budget last week, Council budget hearings will occur over the next three weeks

    • deadline for an enacted budget is June 30th

    • public testimony for the budget is on June 10th - attend and speak about what you want to see more or less funding for in the budget!

  • Juneteenth event on 6/18, 4th Street between Broadway and Lafayette

  • Speaker came out in support of year-round outdoor dining, Councilmembers are working to add language to a curbs bill pushing this

    • read more on issues with the current outdoor dining system here

Board Reports

• District Manager’s Report

  • Executive budget includes responses to MCB3 capital and expense requests

  • DOT has extended timeline on the Canal Street redesign, will not take scheduled vote for June

  • Update on delivery worker bikes on E 11th St: one app company has expressed interest in providing money to find indoor storage

    • jurisdiction has been moved to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, MCB3 is awaiting a response from this office

  • New members who will be appointed to MCB3 are requested to attend all the committee meetings in June, and then determine what are their top choices to apply to sit on in July

Committee Reports

See Committee Meeting recordings here!

• Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment

  • Resolution in support of a bike lane being added on St. Mark’s between 3rd Ave and Avenue A

  • Resolution in support of co-naming the corner of Rivington St between Stanton and Eldridge as Dolores “Brownie” Morales

  • Resolution in support of moving the Kimlau Square Memorial Arch as part of the Kimlau Square redesign

    • MCB3 members had debate over whether there was truly enough public engagement about the plan to move the arch, and whether there was even still time for MCB3 to hold more meetings about it prior to the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing

    • motion to send the resolution back to committee did not pass

    • CORRECTION 6/2/26: CB3’s resolution supported the necessity of the project team's application to LPC to move the memorial arch as part of the redesign, NOT in support of moving the memorial arch. The Board has not yet taken a position on the redesign itself, but this resolution supports allowing the project to proceed in receiving feedback from LPC in their review.

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The following is an excerpt from my latest post in The Bigger Apple. To read the full piece, check out the article here and subscribe to The Bigger Apple for more insightful NYC policy analysis!

The Bigger Apple

NYC Keeps Passing Laws It Can’t Afford

As a member of my community board, I have the pleasure of attending monthly full board meetings. At these meetings, local representatives or their liaisons from City Council members to State legislators provide whatever updates they so wi…

Read more

3 months ago · 8 likes · Tal Roded

As a member of my community board, I have the pleasure of attending monthly full board meetings. At these meetings, local representatives or their liaisons from City Council members to State legislators provide whatever updates they so wish, typically on legislation the elected has introduced, been working on, or recently had passed.

Initially, I was greatly impressed by the parade of bills and resolutions being touted. As the procession repeated itself with each passing meeting, however, I began to wonder why all our City’s problems weren’t fixed yet, given the impressive volume of legislation being passed in the City, State, and federal chambers.

As I began having conversations with workers at city agencies, and political advocates doing on-the-ground work, a more complete picture of these policies emerged.

While agencies often supported the policies being passed, they were frequently exasperated with the burden of new work being piled on without the requisite support of new funding and staffing. Very often, the bills being passed by our proactive and energetic legislators do not adequately consider the means or mechanisms for implementation. These unfunded mandates ultimately undermine public trust in government effectiveness when the law says one thing but the government is unable to enact or enforce it.

City Council Fiscal Impact Statements

Since the passage of the current New York City Charter in 1989, which abolished the Board of Estimate and massively expanded the City Council’s role in NYC governance, some version of fiscal impact statements have been required to vote on proposed legislation.

Chapter 2, Section 33 of the New York City Charter outlines the nature of and requirements regarding fiscal impact statements (FIS). Among these requirements are that all proposed local laws and budget modifications must be accompanied by estimates of “the fiscal impact of the law or modification on the revenues and expenditures of the city”. Such costs and revenues must be estimated for the fiscal year the legislation would become effective, the following fiscal year, and the fiscal year in which the “full impact” of the legislation is expected to occur.

Regarding the accuracy of these estimates, however, the Charter is much more forgiving: “If the estimate contained in a FIS is inaccurate, such inaccuracy does not invalidate the local law or budget modification”. Critically, appropriating the money to fund the expenditures outlined in the FIS is also not required. While the costs of new legislation must be listed out by the City Council, they can then thereafter be ignored by the Council. An FIS can acknowledge that a proposed local law would add massive expenditures to the budget while no funding or revenue sources for the legislation is specified.

So while fiscal impact statements are not comprehensive in delineating the potential impacts of a new local law, nor do they even have to be accurate, they still provide a starting point for measuring the costs of new legislation. In the case of proposed local laws, the required involvement of the Office of Management and Budget also, in theory, brings some rigor and emphasis to accuracy in the estimates.

Introducing the City Council Fiscal Impacts Tracker

These FIS are provided in unstructured Word document attachments on Legistar (link), so in order to better understand the totality of potential costs of mandates and legislation being passed by the NY City Council (NYCC), I aggregated all the fiscal impact statements since 2014 into the NYC Council Fiscal Impacts Tracker.1

The tracker parses available FIS (see footnote) to break them down into the estimated revenue, expenses (operational and capital), and net fiscal impact of the associated local law.

Of the 1,563 fiscal impact statements in the Legistar API for Jan 2014- Apr 2026, 219 were added to the table. The FIS not added to the table were either because both revenue and expense impacts were zero (1,108 cases), no revenue or expense impacts could be found/extracted by Claude (183 cases), or there were duplicates with proposed bills and enacted local laws (~90 cases).

What the data tells us about new costs

Even with the limitations to what data could be scraped, the database contains over $7.5 billion in net fiscal impact (operational expenses + capital expenses - revenues) for City agencies introduced by Council legislation between 2014 and 2026. That represents a fiscal burden larger than the total FY25 budgets for some of the largest agencies, like the departments of housing (HPD), police (NYPD), sanitation (DSNY) and transportation (DOT).

To read the rest of this article, diving into the mostly costly local laws over time and suggesting solutions for proposed legislation cost control, head over to The Bigger Apple:

The Bigger Apple

NYC Keeps Passing Laws It Can’t Afford

As a member of my community board, I have the pleasure of attending monthly full board meetings. At these meetings, local representatives or their liaisons from City Council members to State legislators provide whatever updates they so wi…

Read more

3 months ago · 8 likes · Tal Roded

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Author’s note #2: Recently, the BRC Senior Services Center received a camera upgrade, so Parks Committee Meetings are now hybrid—you can join via Zoom! Here’s a YouTube upload of this meeting:

Parks Manager Updates

Eddie, the Parks Manager, provided updates on:

• Upcoming Events: “It’s My Park” volunteer events at Corlears Hook (May 8) and Tompkins Square Park (May 9).

• Park Safety & Maintenance: Discussions on ongoing collaborations with the 5th Precinct to address drug use and syringe removal in Sara D. Roosevelt (SDR) Park.

  • Parks works with the Department of Sanitation to clean up syringes. For example, they found 114 last week.

  • A new syringe disposal unit will be added near Hester Street.

• Illegal Dumping: Parks has successfully enforced penalties for trash dumping at Captain Jacob Joseph Playground. (This topic was previously discussed at the January and March committee meetings)

• Water Access: Confirmation that water fountain turn-ons are underway following a harsh winter.

Questions for the Parks Manager

• Q: Recently at SDR Park, an elderly lady was nearly raped. The suspect was arrested that day, but what is being done to prevent this from happening again?

  • A: NYPD has now established a patrol in the park, which includes a night patrol from 6:00 PM to midnight.

• Q: There have been reports of someone camping out at East River Park. Has Parks responded yet?

  • A: We haven’t received any reports about this. 311 should respond within a couple of hours if you file a report.

• Q: Are there any updates on replacing the Hester Street Playground sandbox? We wrote a resolution about it [in March 2025] and discussed a nature-based replacement. Last I heard [NY Parks Manhattan Chief of Staff] Steve Simon was requesting further information.

  • A: I’ll follow up. There have been conversations about adding more sand to the sandbox.

  • A: (Community Board District Manager) The applicants for the sandbox replacement walked away from the project. The reasons for this remain unclear.

• Q: Closing down the Men’s Shelter on East 30th will put more pressure on SDR Park. Are we ready for that?

• Q: At Columbus Park, someone is setting the pavilion on fire. It has happened twice in the last six months. Is someone looking into this?

Lower East Side Ecology Center (LESEC) Spring Programming

Maddie discussed spring programming, including:

• LESEC is running its Coolest Block in the Lower East Side contest again this year. Last year had 13 participants.

• Last year’s contest winners have had their tree guards installed via a partnership with NYC Parks Tree Time.

• When caring for street trees, you can borrow tools from the Tool Lending Library. The library stocks gloves, visibility vests, and other supplies.

  • To use the service, first become a member online. You can then pick up tools at the Tompkins Square Park Greenmarket on Sundays between 9AM and 4PM.

Department of Design and Construction (DDC): Construction of Restroom in East River Park

• The project is a design-build contract for a 760 square feet restroom facility at East River Park, parallel to Grand Street nearby East River Park Field (the ballpark).

• Construction is expected to start soon, with completion slated for the fall.

Questions for the DDC about the restrooms

• Q: What is Design-Build?

  • A: It is a kind of contract where the same firm does the design and building. In other contracts, different firms may each complete each phase separately.

• Q: This construction won’t affect already-awarded ballpark permits, right?

  • A: Correct.

• Q: Will this impact access to the pedestrian bridges into East River Park?

  • A: No, it will not affect pedestrian bridge access.

• Q: Is there utility work involved in this project?

  • A: Yes, there will be underground utility work. We have already coordinated with ConEdison on this.

• Q: Is ConEdison feeling good about the schedule? The seem to still be busy recovering from the winter.

  • A: Yes, it’s fine, we coordinated with them via the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project.

• Q: Will you put air monitors where construction is occurring? That is one of the busiest parts of the park.

  • A: There will be a construction fence to prevent debris from affecting visitors. Because this project only involves digging up a grass lawn (clean fill that has already been raised) to a depth of 4 feet, air monitoring is not required. Containment is generally only used for lead paint or asbestos. However, we are working with the ESCR team and can coordinate to water down the area if we see dust.

• Q: What if the public sees any issues with the construction?

  • A: There will not be a dedicated Community Construction Liaison (CCL) for this specific site as there is for ESCR. However, the ESCR online inquiry tool can be used as a resource.

• Q: Why weren’t these restrooms completed during the main ESCR construction in the area?

  • A: This was a separate contract. The design and permitting for the restrooms occurred well after the start of ESCR construction. While there are currently bathrooms in the Fireboat House, they won’t be available as a long-term solution.

• Q: Under an agreement with the community, DDC pledged to keep at least 42% of the park open at all times. Does this construction violate that pledge?

  • A: We can relay that question to the ESCR team

• Q: How are you protecting the nearby trees?

  • A: We are surrounding those trees with 4x4 wooden cages for protection.

NY Parks responses to CB budget requests

• The Community Board (CB) makes budget requests to the city government, which are approved in October. In January, the City creates a preliminary budget, and the City Council hosts executive budget hearings in May.

• The CB now has responses to last year’s budget requests.

• Most responses from the Parks Department state that they lack the funding for specific requests, as they do not have their own capital funding. Typically, these projects must be funded by the City or specific elected officials.

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Some notable examples:

• of Maximum New York has built out an entire data hub exploring new ways to visualize and understand government, and highlighted other uses here

• of Vital City has launched dozens of apps like NYPD CompStat ledger that organizes and visualizes NYC crime data in real-time

  • With tons more great NYC-focused AI apps on the Vital City portal here

• Nathan Storey of NYC OTI has built Civic AI Tools to make working with NYC Open Data easier and more effective

• Sean Eke of CBC created Hearing Hearings, which summarizes NY City Council hearings from YouTube transcripts & NY City Council Legistar information

While AI tools still have many limitations and should be used with guardrails, with their outputs always checked and verified, ignoring them only limits one’s own potential today.1

In this post, I want to showcase several ways I have used AI tools to contribute to the civic technology domain myself. I will cover how I use AI to enhance and inform my Substack writing, to conduct policy research and understand government systems better, and to build tools for the public like with Block Party.2

If you have an AI use case or civic tech tool you have created, please share it with me! I will add it to the AI Civic Tech Tools Wiki on my website, and feature it in future posts. If you want to learn more about how to use/build these tools, or connect with others building in this space, please also reach out to me to connect or simply to register your interest. I am in the works with several other civic tech builders to plan some events and establish a working group for AI/policy — look out for more to come soon.

AI for Substack Writing and Open Data Exploration

Perhaps the most direct impact of AI on my own work has been its complete integration into my data exploration and visuals-making process. Previously, when digging into the data behind a policy topic, I would manually comb through dozens of online pages, spend hours tracking down data sources, and even longer on putting together tables or charts that could shed insights on the issues I was writing on.

Today, I let AI do much of this tracking down and visual creation. That is not to say I don’t still spend much time googling and reading about various data sets and contexts. But I will ask Claude to help me find relevant sources, or provide it with several sources I have found and ask it to find me others that are similar or provide different perspectives. This has both sped up my research process and deepened it by surfacing links that I would not have found otherwise.

Similarly, once I have a good idea of a visual I want to produce based on my findings and the message I want to convey, I’ll ask Claude to put it together. I may suggest an exact chart type and details I want it to use, or I’ll just give Claude a description of what I want and iterate on whatever it comes up with.

Here are several examples of the visuals I’ve created for Substack posts:

• Table of NYC Chief Savings Officers budget savings items, scraped from a Mayor’s Office announcement text list

• Loading bar breakdown of NYC curb space allocation across the entire city

• Visualization of various tax rates in NYC

• Treemap of the NYC FY2025 budget, broken down by agency and color-coded by domain

One huge upgrade to my chart-making thanks to AI has been the ability to make these visuals interactive. While I was previously making static charts in R (ggplot2) or tables with Datawrapper that had minimal interactivity, web-hosted visuals made by Claude have much more dynamic elements. For any visual I create, I can ask Claude to make it sortable, filterable, shift what element the visual is highlighting or sizing by, or completely recalculate the chart based on a user selection.

Some tips to improve the visual-making process:

• Set up a skill, or at least a markdown document accessible to Claude, with instructions on how you like your charts to look and preferred chart types or methodologies for certain types of data. This can also work in the negative, like instructing Claude to never create pie charts for budget data (or whatever else you would like).

• Create a visualization style guide that matches your personal preferred style from everything like color schemes to fonts to how legends or footnotes should be formatted. Anytime Claude keeps formatting visuals in a way you don’t like, add new instructions to this guide so it avoids doing so in the future.

• Tell Claude to provide all sources used in its visual and explain all methodology for any calculations or transformations done.

• Ask Claude to make charts interactive if possible, including image download/embed links and links to download/view the data source.

On that last point, if you want to enable AI to do the same for you, you’ll have to set-up a pipeline so Claude has somewhere to host your data, charts, and methodology pages. Otherwise all these files can only be locally hosted and you won’t have a way to make these visuals/datasets publicly accessible or easily shareable.

My set-up has involved linking Claude Code to my personal Github, setting up rules for which repos or folders it should push new code for new posts/visuals to, and then pushing new visuals and anything hosted on the web to their own GitHub Page. Once you’ve got that type of workflow set, you can have Claude directly push new pages or make changes to existing pages that will nearly instantly update on a live, publicly accessible webpage. You can even use Github Actions to automate regular updates or data pushes, along with much more.

Tips for hosting AI-created visuals on custom webpages:

• The first step is to set up the GitHub CLI for Claude Code (or whatever model you are running on your computer) – ask Claude to walk you through how to do this!

• Ask Claude to create a website and store it locally, telling it what data to use, such as an open dataset name or whatever local files you have. You can also then make edits locally, before pushing changes to GitHub to update your website/pages.

• Use Namecheap or another domain hosting service to create a new CNAME record (DNS settings) that points to your newly created GitHub website/page.

• Anytime you make a change to one of your website pages, can always ask Claude to launch a local server to show you the updates; after reviewing changes on the localhost page, tell Claude to push those changes and that’s all you should need to do for updates to go live!

For extra credit, you can purchase your own domain and create custom subdomains with whatever names you wish. I use Namecheap to do this but there are many cheap options. You can then link your GitHub Pages to these customized domain names, so that your AI-created webpages have fun or clean names like:

nycuriosity.com | data.nycuriosity.com | talroded.nycuriosity.com

I realize that not all the above steps are intuitive for those without prior GitHub or website development experience. If you are interested in setting up your own websites, data portals, interactive charts, or any of the above, feel free to reach out to me! And remember that Claude itself can be an instrumental partner in setting up these work processes to begin with.

Building the Block Party Community Board Resolutions Knowledge Base

I recently wrote about a new tool I partnered with the Block Party team to build, the NYC Community Boards resolutions knowledge base. You can read more about what this tool is and how it can help inform users about community board discussions and actions here.

The process to construct this resolutions database currently involves fetching the meeting notes PDF from its URL, extracting all the raw text, then using a number of rules to identify the relevant resolution text and parse it out from the full PDF. The text is then lightly cleaned and stored in different context chunks related to whether the resolution text is the title, a whereas clause (which gives background on the resolution topic), or a therefore clause (which states the action/decision the CB is making with the resolution).

To build this resolutions extractor, I conducted an iterative approach with Claude Code writing the majority of the Python code in every step. In many instances, I spoke to Claude in plain-language, describing to it what I wanted to do (“create an automatic pdf extractor that downloads every meeting notes available on the Manhattan CB3 website”) and then reviewing its code. I was then able to give Claude feedback on the pipeline it set-up, and iterate to improve how text was extracted or chunked, again all as if I was talking to a colleague.

My collaborator on this work, Sarah Sachs, also used AI to help us generate AI summaries of resolutions. In her case, she took the text chunks I uploaded and ran them through an OpenAI model called in a Python script, with a simple prompt asking the model to summarize each text chunk for each resolution. This prompt is by no means perfect or in a final state for our own purposes, but it’s incredible how effective the model was at providing concise and informative summaries based on such simple plain instructions.

Explore the Community Board resolutions and transcripts databases here.

The result is a centralized, searchable database of community board resolutions that returns both the full resolution text and 2-3 sentence summaries that convey the main takeaways. Community Board members, the public, journalists, and any other interested party can stay better informed on the decisions being made by Community Boards or search for the full history of CB resolutions on any topic or keyword.

The most exciting part is that our work on Block Party has just begun, and we are currently working on scaling up the tool. Again using AI to enable our workflow, we are scaling the resolutions knowledge base to include all Community Boards posting their meeting notes or resolutions publicly, and adding new features to enable exploring and understanding the text better.

AI tools made it possible to create the first ever database of this kind for NYC Community Boards that can improve democratic participation and awareness of local issues, built by a small team in just a few months.

AI is transforming the civic technology field. Let’s transform it together.

Key to all the AI use cases in this post are two things:

1. I always check Claude’s work for any visual it creates and any data it presents. This includes making sure calculations are performed correctly, data sources exist and are being accessed and manipulated properly, and that claimed figures match up with reality (where possible to verify) or expectations (where not).3

2. I never use Claude to generate my opinions or do my writing. While I find it an amazing researcher and visual-maker, I personally do not want to automate the actual analysis and synthesis of the data insights process. You may hold different views, but this is the part I find most essential to keep guarded from automation.

The examples shared above are also just two narrow slices of the multitude of applications for the suite of AI tools currently out there. They are by no means the only use cases for AI, nor even close to the frontier of what current models and tools can accomplish.

To give just a few more examples:

• I created a “NYC Government Bodies Explorer” that lets you organize and visualize the size of NYC agencies, commissions, and other types of government bodies by headcount or budget. This was all built on publicly available data that Claude Code scraped.

• For that matter, the Data Hub itself that I host these visuals and all the charts and tables for my Substack posts was built and is constantly updated by Claude.

• My personal website is also built using Claude, which further auto-updates my Writings tab when I make new posts and builds the Wiki page with all its resources based on a pile of links I continue to throw at it without structure.

• Henry Grunzweig created the State Capacity Ecosystem map that makes it simple to find organizations working on state capacity problems. I created an interactive version of this map, using AI to build it, here.

I highly encourage anyone interested in covering public policy or having a meaningful impact on policies to experiment with AI and learn how to use and build tools themselves. As I mentioned above, if you wish to share a use case or tool of your own, please share it with me (by Substack DM, in the comments of this post, email, or anywhere else) and I will both add it to my AI Civic Tech Tools wiki and feature it in a future Substack post.

Further, I’m planning some events with other civic tech practitioners to grow the state capacity and civic tech ecosystem in NYC. Look out for announcements soon on hackathon-style events and mixers where people with policy interests can come together to build and explore these tools. And if you’re interested in getting involved, please reach out to one of us.

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Any opinions expressed below are solely my own and do not represent the views of Manhattan Community Board 3.

Find your community district and key information about it here.

Manhattan Community Board 3 Apr 2026 Full Board Meeting

Tuesday, Apr 28, 2026 - 6:30pm

PS 20 - 166 Essex Street

Meeting Highlights:

• The E 11th St delivery worker bike corral once again came up in the public session, with residents saying sidewalks are impassable and that nearby storefronts are closed or unable to pay rent because of the activity. The Board Chair confirmed that the Mayor’s new Office of Mass Engagement has stepped in to work with all parties on a resolution.

• The Land Use Committee approved a Certificate of Appropriateness for St. Augustine’s Church to build a 21-story development at 290 Henry Street with 130 income-restricted units, retail, and religious space — requiring a Zoning Special Permit because the zoning lot contains a landmark.

• The Transportation Committee resolved to support all NYCDOT Open Streets in CD3, including 5-day operations on Canal Street from 3–10 PM.

• NY City Council Speaker Menin announced she will advance Councilmember Martre’s No More 24 bill, ending a hunger strike by 15 home care aide workers that began last week in support of the legislation.

• NYCDOT is siting e-bike battery storage cabinets across the city this summer to cut down on lithium battery fires, and is accepting public suggestions for locations through July 31st.

Notes from board meeting:

Public Session

• Public comments about the delivery workers bike corral on E 11th St

  • one resident: situation has become desire, no space to move on the sidewalks, retail stores cannot stay in business

  • another resident: all storefronts on the street are currently closed or are unable to pay their rents due to the current situation

• Lower East Side Preservation Initiative recently won a landmarking for a church in the LES

  • hosting an opening ceremony this Saturday, 5/2 2-5 PM for a photography exhibit at The Clemente

    • exhibit will be running until June 30th

• Organizer of LES History Month announcing launch of events soon - walking tours, exhibits, festivals, etc.

  • most events are outdoors, family friendly, and FREE - throughout May!

• Public Theater reps (home of Shakespeare in the Park) announcing summer programming

  • Romeo & Juliet will be Shakespeare in the Park’s free summer show this year, beginning May 22nd

  • also have a mobile unit putting on shows in June at Astor Place

• ABC No Rio rep at 156 Rivington St has a new building opening this fall - space for artists, activists, punks, and the community

  • performance space, computer lab, zine library, and more will be part of the new space

• NYC Dance Parade is coming up in 2.5 weeks on Sat 5/16 at 12 PM, involving over 40 schools each doing 40 seconds of dance

  • dancing to Tompkins Square Park where there will be multiple stages and more performances

• Chinatown YMCA offers a variety of programming both paid and free

  • they have an aquatics program! adults and children learn how to swim classes! family programming! taco tuesday! language classes! free food distribution (every second Friday of the month)! digital literacy classes! financial assistance for interested members!

• Request to deny the Canal St Open Streets request to expand operating hours of the open street due to health issues for residents caused by increased activity on the street

Community Planning Fellow: Final Presentation for Policy Analysis of Affordable Housing Opportunities under City of Yes in CB3

• 20% increase in FAR for Community District 3 in City of Yes (COY) increased allowance of housing stock, mainly along commercial corridors

• Large portion of residents in the LES are rent burdened, most residents also live alone, increasing affordability difficulties

• NISHA campuses occupy significant portion of land in the district

• 59% of lots in the LES were being built below their maximum allowable FAR due to a mix of landmark statuses, school/NISHA campuses, other blockers

• COY provides tax breaks and rezoning opportunities, but does not address issues of cost of building for non-luxury developers

  • this prevents nonprofit and mission-driven developers from accessing COY value unlocks

Elected Officials Reports

• Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s Liaison

  • Hold monthly meetings to discuss solutions for rapid response protocols and expand access to legal services for those affected by ICE raids

  • Office has sent out invites for Community Board applicants to participate in group interview sessions

  

  • Re-launched a volunteer corps, see here for details on how to get involved

• District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Liaison

  • Office is conducting interview on immigration fraud to crack down on fake immigration lawyers

  • resources for free legal services can be found on DA’s website

  • doing a gun buy back on Saturday, 6/13 - see website for more details

• Congressmember Dan Goldman’s Liaison

  • Demanding information on how many people are affected by ICE claiming authority they did not have

    • among many other bills introduced by the Congressmember to reign in ICE

• Assemblymember Grace Lee’s Liaison

  • Introduced legislation to require NY businesses that contract with ICE to make that public in an accessible database

  • Advocating for a food security package in the State budget

• Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s Liaison

  • Urging leadership to push back on Governor’s proposal to roll back climate laws in the latest budget

  • Supports the pied-à-terre tax proposed by Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani

  

  • NYCDOT is setting up e-bike battery storage cabinets, deciding this summer where to locate them, to reduce lithium battery fires

    • submit suggestions here, open through July 31st

• Assemblymember Keith Powers’ Liaison

  • Supports Governor’s SEQRA reform efforts to make it easier and faster to build more housing and tackle the affordability crisis

  • Federal government is phasing out the penny, which means sales prices will be rounded up/down to the nearest 0.05

  • Introduced legislation to exempt sales tax for pet food

• State Senator Brian Kavanagh’s Liaison

  • Will continue holding office hours through the summer, attend if you have questions for the State Senator!

• Councilmember Christopher Martre’s Liaison

  • Last week, 15 home care aide workers went on hunger strike in support of Councilmember Martre’s No More 24 bill

    • Speaker Menin recently announced the bill will be advanced, ending the hunger strike

  • Sponsoring street co-naming ceremony to celebrate unveiling of Jack Kirby Way in the LES - Monday, 5/11 at 12 PM on the corner of Delancey St and Essex St

• Councilmember Harvey Epstein - attended!

  • holding a vigil 4/29 7:30 PM for a resident who was killed by gun violence

  • Has a bill to create a new department for student loan borrowers to receive help from the City

Board Reports

• Board Chair’s Report

  • Update on the E 11th St delivery workers bike situation: the Mayor’s new Office of Mass Engagement has been very engaged with all the parties involved to resolve the situation

Committee Reports

See Committee Meeting recordings here!

• Executive

  • Two resolutions were introduced to remove members due to continued low attendance and no improvement following prior notice - motions did not pass in committee

    • bylaws state that members must receive two letters following lack of attendance (absent at more than 33% of meetings), with 6 months between letters, before removal can be considered

  • Resolution to deny open container waiver for streets events, in regard to World Cup events occurring in NYC this summer

    • Executive Committee claims it did not receive any information from the State regarding this waiver program, and while the State would proceed with the program regardless, the committee desired to register its disapproval of not being kept in the loop

    • Resolution was denied by roll call vote of full board

• Landmarks

  • Resolution to approve Certificate of Appropriateness to install a handicap lift at the front of 4 St. Mark’s Place

• Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment

  • Resolution to support all the NYCDOT Open Streets located in CD3

    • also supporting 5-day open street operations on Canal Street, for 3-10 PM

• Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing

  • Resolution to approve St. Augustine’s Church permit to build a 21-story development containing 130 income-restricted units, retail, and religious space

    • requires a Zoning Special Permit due to zoning lot containing a landmark at 290 Henry Street

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On one side is QueensWay, an organization calling for the corridor to be converted into a Highline-style park with plenty of green space, bike and pedestrian paths, and 47 acres of parks for the surrounding neighborhoods to enjoy in the next few years.

On the other side is QueensLink, who agree with creating park space out of the corridor, but also see the opportunity to reactivate the train tracks. They put forward a proposal to extend the M train from its current terminus at Forest Hills - 71 Av and instead continue onto this abandoned right-of-way (ROW) onward to Rockaway Beach, a project that would likely take around a decade to complete.

QueensLink advocates believe both a park and improved transit access can be provisioned, boosting connectivity for these outer Queens neighborhoods to Manhattan. They also believe the longer timeline is worth it for the massive transit benefits for the region. QueensWay advocates don’t see this proposal as realistic given the current state of the corridor and the tremendous cost and time required to reactivate the tracks, and prefer to move forward with a model park corridor that can be implemented more quickly.

To be honest with you, dear readers, I was someone who strongly leaned towards supporting the QueensLink proposal. The opportunity to bring new rapid transit to these Queens neighborhoods while still providing park space seemed too good to pass up. I’ve also often argued that NYC needs more ambitious urban transportation project proposals, and QueensLink fits that bill.

However, to my surprise, I was recently reached out to by QueensWay advocates to walk the project area and learn about their goals and objectives.1 Our conversation surfaced more complex dynamics than what you typically read online about this issue, which has motivated me to write an article digging deeper into the issues on either side of the RBB debate.

This is not to say that I am now all aboard the QueensWay perspective. I still have hopes that elements of both proposals can be implemented to some extent – Queens needs both more transit and more parks. But walking the RBB corridor myself and talking to advocates on the QueensWay side, outside my usual bubble of transit nerds, has raised difficult questions that make the choice between the options less clear cut than I thought. Regardless, it’s healthy to look at both sides of an issue, and I think that the discourse online in the pro-transit community has perhaps been too mistrustful of the QueensWay project without considering the merits of their case.

So, with the stage now set, let’s talk about why I believe that the QueensWay proposal deserves more serious consideration from the transit community, and why the choice for this corridor is genuinely difficult to decide.

Why the Feasibility Case for QueensWay Is Strong

The arguments for QueensWay versus QueensLink start and end with feasibility. On the merits, QueensLink certainly appears to be the superior proposal: it provides nearly as much new park space and greenways as QueensWay’s park proposal would, but with the added benefit of rapid transit and subway connections. QueensLink’s proposal claims that you can have your cake (new park space), and eat it too (new transit).

But there have been indications that extending the M train through this corridor is not feasible, at least not in the near future nor at the price the QueensLink team claims. While reactivating the abandoned RBB tracks is great in theory, the MTA itself has thrown some water on the idea.

In 2018, the MTA took a look at the Rockaway Beach Branch tracks and estimated costs for restoring services to this branch. The findings were quite different between those of QueensLink. Across the board, the MTA was less optimistic on potential ridership and project costs. The report examined reactivating the tracks for both LIRR and NYC Transit subway usage – in both cases, costs were estimated at double or more what QueensLink estimated.

The MTA projected fewer daily riders and less frequent service along this corridor, estimating around 47,000 daily riders by 2025 compared to QueensLink’s 75,000 estimate. Even the QueensLink estimate would be less than half the ridership estimates of other current or proposed transit projects elsewhere in NYC: the IBX (estimated cost $5.5 billion) projects 160,000 daily riders and the Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 extension (estimated cost $7.7 billion) projects 200,000 daily riders. This lower ridership projection greatly brings up the cost per rider metric key to a transit project’s feasibility.

Part of the reason for these differences is the MTA proposing both the M and R trains to run on the lines, lower service frequency, and other operational differences that would affect ridership. Other differences stem from study methodology, with the QueensLink people protesting that the MTA incorrectly inflated costs in its report.

Which estimates you believe largely affect the project’s overall feasibility and whether it makes sense to pursue. Even accepting the argument that the MTA report may contain errors leading to overestimated costs, it remains clear that expectations within the agency clearly don’t align with those of QueensLink.

In the MTA’s more recent scorecard of the Rockaway Beach Branch reactivation in its 20-Year Needs Assessment, the project received low scores on all categories besides equity (admittedly, a very important consideration, and more on that soon) and overall low potential compared to the other projects in the MTA’s portfolio. The total cost was now projected at a lower $5.9 billion, still nearly double QueensLink’s estimate and hurting the cost per time saved metric.

Part of this low score ties back to continued disagreements about true ridership and costs. However, the MTA’s doubts extend to impacts and benefits of extending service in other manners as well. The findings section attributes low scores to the fact that “There is minimal crowding reduction since some Queens Blvd Line subway service would be moved to serve this new line, and there is no improvement in geographic distribution.” Further, the 2018 MTA report claimed, “Overall, the middle class established neighborhoods prevalent along the RBB do not lend themselves well to [Transit-Oriented Development] potential.”

What QueensLink Gets Right

I don’t want to completely disregard the QueensLink proposal based on these cost and ridership estimate differences, however. For one, consider some important facts about the corridor surrounding the Rockaway Beach Branch in Queens:

• There are over 250,000 residents within a 15-minute walk of this area

• The average commute for some neighboring areas, such as Howard Beach and South Ozone Park, are north of 45 minutes – among the longest in NYC

• 20% of these residents commute over 60 minutes each way, far above the City average of 37 minutes

• The neighboring communities are amongst the most diverse in the world, not just NYC, housing communities from South Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America

Currently, the primary method of public transit in the area are the Q52/Q53 buses, which run along Woodhaven Blvd. This bus route is subject to slow, surface-level traffic on a heavily congested street with limited bus-only provisions. At the same time, around 30% of residents drive to work, reflecting a higher car-dependency than usual for NYC. Clearly, this is a region of the City that would benefit from improved public transit access.

And herein lies QueensLink’s strongest card: if we accept the QueensWay proposal, what happens to these commuters? While improved parks and greenway space is in many ways beneficial, they do not fill the transit gaps for these neighborhoods.

If QueensWay supporters can expand their own proposal to include funding or consideration for expanded bus rapid transit (BRT), or other public transit projects to improve accessibility in this corridor, it would make giving up on RBB reactivation an easier pill to swallow. Without consideration for the mobility needs of this massive, diverse region of the city, even the most ambitious greenway proposal feels lacking.

Where Things Stand

Surprising QueensLink supporters, Mayor Mamdani’s FY2026 budget proposal included $43 million in funding for a section of the QueensWay proposed parks, rather than track reactivation. Prior to Mamdani, Mayor Adams’ administration also appeared to be moving forward with QueensWay plans, promising funding for the same section of the parks dubbed the “Metropolitan Hub”.

Supporters of QueensLink have pointed to big money, corruption, rich residents, NIMBYs, and other malcontents as reasons for support from electeds and advocates of the QueensWay proposal. Perhaps this is true to some extent – like the Highline, prioritizing a new park over transit access may attract high-income residents while displacing working-class ones. But I try to take these arguments in good faith, and there is no evidence that the QueensWay organization or its supporters are acting maliciously. While I may disagree with some of their stances, I have to accept the possibility that they are acting with the best intentions for their communities, just as I assume the QueensLink organization does too. And unfortunately for my urban transit ambitions, they bring up valid points regarding the difficulty of rail reactivation.

I am always a supporter of improving public transit access, particularly in areas of NYC that are so lacking in it currently. But I also acknowledge that the MTA and the City face real constraints in their abilities to deliver on every proposal and fund every project. And if low ridership or high construction costs mean this project can’t be delivered in the next 15 or 20 years, I think it becomes a fair question whether delaying transforming the corridor into usable parks and greenway today for that far-off possibility is still the right call.

At the end of the day, extending M train service will be the MTA’s decision, which it must consider in balance with all the other needs and proposals in its portfolio. If the project is viewed as infeasible by them, or less than a priority than other transit projects, then QueensLink’s proposal remains a nonstarter until the MTA and elected officials convinced otherwise. While minds can always be changed, lack of support from the MTA itself should be factored into any alternatives analysis and may further delay timelines on getting track reactivation work started.

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On the 101st day mark (April 7th), members of the Mamdani transition teams, as well as current members of the administration, spoke about lessons learned from the first 100. While these panelists represent only a small part of the many initiatives and policies begun by the Mamdani administration since early January, their discussion provides insights into how current leaders are addressing urgent city issues.

Learning how they are thinking about and tackling policies in their domain is also a useful translation to other domains the City is grappling with, from the rapidly occurring effects of AI to top-down cultural changes driving new collaborations.

Below are takeaways from the panel discussion, along with data-driven insights I added for each section. You can find more information and context on all the charts below at the NYCuriosity data portal here.

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Meg Egan | First Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Correction (DOC)

DOC is behind schedule on closing Rikers Island jails, partly because the previous administration was resisting this effort. The department is working on getting back on track with the construction of the four borough jails – in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan – and care centers that will replace Rikers. The plan to build the borough jails is a massive, massive urban planning project.

Rikers Island jail, as the name reveals, is located on an island extremely difficult to access from the rest of NYC. Moving the population to facilities located more centrally across four of the city’s boroughs will reduce the burden on inmates’ families for visitations and spread the population across the City. Given its notorious reputation of cruelty and corruption, the hope is that the move to new facilities will also reinstitute healthier institutional cultures and improve safety.

However, there are also some concerns raised about the four new facilities. For one, the current population of Rikers is estimated to be somewhere around double the capacity of the new buildings. The total NYC jail population will have to be reduced, or inmates found alternative facilities (like rehabilitation or mental care-focused institutions), to conduct a successful move.

There are dueling takes on whether such a reduction and rehousing of the current population is achievable on the planned timeline (yes, no). What is certain is that a more expansive view of rehabilitation will be required, with treatment for medical conditions and mental illness playing a large role. Mayor Mamdani has made progress on this front with the recently established Office of Community Safety.

The current population of Rikers is too high for the number of beds in the new jails being constructed. DOC will need to bring in all of the City government and State partners to not only make the math work, but to achieve safety goals. While the new jail buildings will be better designed to care for people, the long-term solution for replacing Rikers is building community support capacity and re-engineering the legal system to funnel people to the appropriate care facilities. DOC and the City generally need a systematic and holistic approach, not just checking the boxes and meeting minimum requirements.

People who enter the DOC come in with good intentions to do good work, but face past mismanagement and a difficult current situation at Rikers. Making DOC a good place to work will bring in new workers and improve conditions all around. DOC is also very siloed, to the detriment of both the agency and the City. A multi-agency coalition is needed to tackle DOC’s goals and objectives.

Eric Goldwyn | Program Director, Clinical Professor, Marron Institute of Urban Management

The report his group recently published, A Better Billion, reimagines using the $1 billion price tag for free buses proposed by Mayor Mamdani with an alternative plan to expand the subway and build more housing. He sees this as a better use of funds for supporting the long-term goal of making New York a more affordable city.

A Better Billion proposes “12 distinct projects that would extend the subway by 41 miles and 64 new stations across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx” - to be built over the next 40 years. The authors of the report estimate that carrying out all 12 projects would cost about $48 billion (2025 dollars), which after standard federal funding matches, would cost the City a bit less than $1 billion per year. This equals the expected annual cost of making MTA buses free.

The recommended expansions of the subway system would have follow-on effects that could lead to more housing development and save NYC residents in other costs, like not needing to own a car to live in outer Brooklyn or Queens. Improved accessibility in the affected neighborhoods could also spur job growth desperately needed and bringing in new tax revenue.

There is too much detail and too many interesting ideas to cover, all of which deserve a post of their own. But the bold proposals of this report are exactly the kind of ambitious urban transportation planning that NYC has been lacking and that I have been hoping for more of. Whether you agree that all the projects in the report are actually as feasible at the costs the authors estimate or not, they are all worth receiving as much attention as free buses have thanks to Mamdani.

Subway expansions were proposed with two major goals in mind: 1) where do we have busy buses with no subway support, and 2) where do we have the largest potential for new housing. 167,00 new units of housing could result from the proposed subway expansions, with no zoning changes required whatsoever.

His report prioritized corridors with busy buses - making the Utica Avenue subway one of the biggest priorities. The Cross-Bronx Express line would activate a lot of housing potential and relieve another very busy bus route. The 125th Street extension is another big opportunity. The Long Island Expressway could have the biggest overall impact.

Gregory Morris | CEO, NYC Employment and Training Coalition

New jobs in NYC have largely been found within the healthcare and social assistance space. Tech, finance, retail, hospitality have all not bounced back since COVID or are still struggling. AI is impacting first entry-level jobs, and now potentially all white collar work, so the new jobs that are being created are largely found in low-wage occupations. Not much good news for the job market across industries – the City needs to figure out how to cut costs, such as on housing, to make NYC more affordable for low-wage workers.

Regardless of the industry, employers largely say the same thing: planning for the future has gotten harder as things move faster, and they want project managers. Surveyed employers all say they need workers who can work independently, collaborate with peers, and come up with plans for achieving objectives. While AI is changing the landscape by the hour, these skills – and social capital – will continue to matter. If credentials matter less now, then who you know and your own ability to get tasks done matter even more.

NYC needs to figure out how to invest in the intersection between economic development and workforce development. No matter what people are building, the City needs to enable them to do the building. This involves enabling social capital for individuals located here and facilitating relationship building.

Attracting medium- and high-income jobs to the City will be a critical policy to sustain the tax base and prevent massive budget gaps or safety net program cuts in the future. NYC desperately needs job growth in its traditionally strong industries like Finance and Professional Services, while nurturing emerging industries like Life Sciences and Artificial Intelligence. In this manner, AI is both a major risk and a major opportunity for the local labor market.

We are at a very strange point with AI where things are moving faster than we can see their impact. It’s hard to forecast even 6 or 12 months out what will happen.

Felicia Singh | Director of Policy and Government Relations, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF)

NYC has one of the most segregated school systems in the nation. How we fund schools determines how they’re able to hire and retain teachers, design curriculums, and integrate schools all at the same time. Public schools need to be fully funded to provide equitable education across the city. Federal funding cuts and dismantling of the federal Department of Education (DOE) have trickle down effects on NYC.

Just figuring out who is benefiting from the current programs funded by DOE is complex. It is hard to follow the money when schools are funded by the State through taxes and formulas, with specific weights for students falling into certain categories changing the funding amount. Some schools even have robust PTAs that can fundraise for programming in schools, and that’s not being taken into account. Leadership needs a more clear picture of where the current dollars are actually flowing.

DOE is the single largest agency in NYC, by far, demanding 35% ($38.5 billion in FY2025) of the City budget 24% of City headcount (73,000+ employees in FY2025). Untangling the web of funding sources and formulas is no easy task, but will be necessary as the Mamdani administration grapples with budget gaps.

One major piece of news to watch out for is if NYC will delay class size mandates from the State. The mandate is expected to add billions in costs to the City budget over the next few years at a time when expenses are already outpacing revenues. Action here and in other cost-cutting measures on schools, such as combining schools with shrunken student bodies, could save the City billions more but face blowback from parents.

The Mayor has done well at already thinking of new opportunities for collaboration with the new teams he has been forming, such as the Office of Community Safety. We need to keep thinking of new opportunities for agency intersections and collaboration.

Tiffany-Ann Taylor | Chief Strategy Officer, NYC Department of Transportation (DOT)

DOT has over 6,000 employees. It has also historically been lacking diversity at the top. Agencies have often been very siloed in their work, and I would like to form more partnerships. The federal government has also been very focused on NYC, often not in positive ways, and that will be a relationship to navigate carefully. DOT needs to rehabilitate or even create new relationships from scratch with city, state, and federal government partners.

Much of DOT’s goodwill with the NY City Council, street safety advocates, and other groups were burned by its failures to meet Streets Plan mandates during the Adams administration. The agency’s leadership received a thorough thrashing in a recent City Council Transportation Committee hearing, which I covered here:

At the same time, new leadership under Mamdani and promising moves by the previous administration on plans like the Greater Greenways provide much hope. Building relationships with key agency partners and State and federal actors can enable long-awaited hopes and dreams to finally happen under the current energetic leadership.

Her priorities start on month 6 or even year 2, while Day 1 on the job will be focused on resetting relationships, building collaborations. To tackle big ideas like on parking, DOT needs to have better relationships with street advocates and drivers. Drivers fall into different categories, like residential drivers and professional drivers (Uber, Lyft, taxis, trucks, delivery vehicles, etc). With DOT claiming more curb space, many drivers feel they are not being heard or considered by the agency. To tackle parking, a strong relationship needs to be developed with these stakeholders in the roads.

AI needs to be understood for its uses and effects on the DOT and the City. How can it be used by the agency? What is the strategy for its use? What are the implications of others using AI? How can use be efficient and equitable? What are the tradeoffs of all this?

The goal is to make DOT an agency where people are clamoring to work. DOT has been on the defense for the past few administrations, and she wants to make people excited about the agency again and be a leader in change. With the Mayor’s focus on instituting a culture shift in government, changing the culture at DOT is a prime opportunity. A key priority is to improve both internal morale and external excitement about DOT initiatives.

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The following is an excerpt from my post in The Bigger Apple. To read the full piece, check out the article here and subscribe to The Bigger Apple for more insightful NYC policy analysis!

The Bigger Apple

Is NYC’s Cost-Cutting Strategy Enough to Close Its Budget Gap?

Government expenses are expected to grow 4.5% annually over the next few years; city revenues, meanwhile, are projected to grow only 2%, assuming no economic setbacks from a bad year on Wall Street or broader instability. The compounding gap between those two figures means budget shortfalls will only grow…

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4 months ago · 9 likes · Tal Roded

Government expenses are expected to grow 4.5% annually over the next few years; city revenues, meanwhile, are projected to grow only 2%, assuming no economic setbacks from a bad year on Wall Street or broader instability. The compounding gap between those two figures means budget shortfalls will only grow.

To balance the books, the City has two options: raise revenue or cut expenses.

Raising revenue means either growing the tax base — desirable but slow — or increasing taxes, which requires Albany’s blessing for income taxes (unlikely) and is deeply unpopular for property taxes.

Increasing the tax base is the most desirable course of action as it grows the economic pie for all involved. Unfortunately, it is also one of the more difficult levers for the City government to control, as it relies on complex economic conditions at the city, state, and federal levels. I proposed some policies the Mamdani administration could pursue in this post, but even if the City follows through on them, it will take years for the effects to translate to City revenues at scale.

NYCuriosity

NYC’s Job Growth Has a Quality Problem

There are nearly 4.9 million jobs based in NYC, of which about 4.2 million are in the private sector (i.e., not government jobs). And yet, in 2025, NYC only added 33,400 new private sector jobs. Even worse, through the first half of 2025 there were 4,600 fewer businesses…

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5 months ago · 26 likes · 2 comments · Tal Roded

That leaves cutting expenses as the most immediate lever available. To that end and to his credit, Mayor Mamdani created Chief Savings Officers (CSOs) at every City agency, tasked with finding savings. Their plans came due on March 20. Here’s what we know so far.

The Mayor’s Strategy: Chief Savings Officers

The CSOs were tasked with identifying 1.5% in savings for 2026 and 2.5% for 2027 and beyond. The total came in at over $1.7 billion — right around 1.47% of the $116B FY26 adopted budget.

What the Mayor’s Office has shared publicly is far less: an “initial list of approved items” across 16 agencies totaling about $250 million over FY26 and FY27. The gap between $1.7B identified and $250M released raises questions worth examining — about what’s in the approved items, and about whether agency-identified savings alone can close a budget gap that keeps widening.

What we know about the CSO reports so far

I’ll use this “initial list of approved items” in my analysis below.

To put the CSO actions in context, I compared them to the relevant agency’s FY25 accepted budget. For each agency, the % of FY25 budget calculation is:

- FY27 savings ÷ FY25 budget (for agencies that have FY27 savings)

- FY26 savings ÷ FY25 budget (for agencies that only have FY26 savings – e.g., DOC, MONS)

The logic here is that FY27 is potentially more of a “steady state” ongoing savings target (of 2.5%), so it’s the more meaningful denominator year to benchmark against. For agencies with no FY27 figure, FY26 is used as the only available data point.

Given all that, here are the released savings by agency, sorted by largest savings for FY27:

The Office of Labor Relations (OLR) dominates. A single administrative action — a $100M audit removing ineligible dependents from employee health plans — accounts for roughly 51% of total FY27 savings in the Mayor’s announcement. This one item, from a tiny agency, dwarfs everything else on the list.

The Department of Finance (DOF) has the most substantive savings relative to its own size, at 1.27% of its FY25 budget. Its single savings item — strengthening verification for the primary residence co-op abatement — would on its own get DOF nearly to its FY26 savings target.

Most other agencies’ savings are well under 0.1% of their budgets. The savings announced for MONS, NYCEM, TLC, OMB, and DSNY are effectively symbolic. If the released items represent the largest savings for those agencies, they risk falling far short of the 2.5% FY27 target.

What the savings items tell us about priorities

To read the rest of this article, including comparisons of CSO savings items to other City budget options, head over to The Bigger Apple:

The Bigger Apple

Is NYC’s Cost-Cutting Strategy Enough to Close Its Budget Gap?

Government expenses are expected to grow 4.5% annually over the next few years; city revenues, meanwhile, are projected to grow only 2%, assuming no economic setbacks from a bad year on Wall Street or broader instability. The compounding gap between those two figures means budget shortfalls will only grow…

Read more

4 months ago · 9 likes · Tal Roded

And make sure to subscribe to The Bigger Apple for more insightful NYC policy analysis!

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Try to figure out what your community board has said on a particular topic, or how they’ve talked to a City agency about some issue or location in your neighborhood, or even just track down a particular business’s liquor license application.

For Manhattan Community Board 3 (MCB3), like many other community boards around NYC, finding those answers will involve opening a PDF of each month’s meeting notes, one month at a time, and manually searching for the topic or keyword of interest. Even for the most technologically adept CBs, who have taken to using Airtable, you’ll likely still have to open dozens of files and lack a method for universal keyword search.

Across MCB3’s publicly available meeting notes, going back to January 2002, there are over 250 PDF documents containing thousands of resolutions. Within those 250+ meeting notes in MCB3’s history are nearly 2 million words, which comes out to about 3.3 War and Peace novels.

There previously existed no centralized database of resolutions, no search function across meeting notes, and therefore no ability to easily consult what the community board has previously said on a topic or issue.

For more info on what resolutions are and why they’re important, see my Demystifying NYC Community Boards Guide.

To make things even more dire, term limits are coming to community boards. Come early 2027, and any community board members who have been on their board consecutively since 2019 will be forced to step down for at least two years. While turnover in public office is healthy and necessary, it also comes at a cost. Newer members on community boards (CBs) across the city do not always know the full history of issues in their community nor the full context of discussions that often stretch across years, if not decades, of meetings.

With older and often highly knowledgeable CB members soon forced to step down, newer and soon-to-join members need a way to fill in the gaps of all that lost knowledge.

Announcing the Community Board Resolutions Knowledge Base

Together with Sarah Sachs and other members of Block Party, I have created a CB knowledge base that will allow anyone - community board members new and old, NYC residents, and any member of the public with questions about local governance in NYC - to search topics or keywords across the entire history of MCB3 resolutions.

In addition to being able to quickly pull up full resolution text, each individual resolution is also provided with two to three sentence summaries of the background context and the key takeaways.

Paired with the pre-existing work by Sarah and the team to transcribe recorded community board meetings uploaded to YouTube (which is available across most CBs and since 2020), a vast sum of CB knowledge and historical records is now publicly available and easily searchable.

We currently only have our resolutions knowledge base available for MCB3, but we are actively working on adding the other 58 community boards. Please subscribe to Block Party’s newsletter here (and my Substack!) for updates as we add additional CBs and new features to our website and search tool.

In addition to expanding the knowledge base to cover all NYC CBs, we plan to add additional features like highlights for City agencies and elected officials, prominent/trending topics in CB resolutions, and linkages to other public meetings and NYC open data. Stay tuned for plenty more to come!

We would also love to hear if you spot any errors, typos, missing data, or other such faults with the knowledge base. If you have suggestions for additional tools or expansions, we would love to hear that too. Please email us over at blockparty.meeting@gmail.com, DM me here on Substack, or email me at troded24@gmail.com.

In the meantime, I will be dropping some posts exploring insights that can be gleaned using our new CB knowledge base. I will explore what sorts of topics are discussed most in CB resolutions, how those vary over time and by committees, which electeds and agencies are the target of most resolutions, and other such insights. Look out for many fun data exploration pieces to come!

For now, I will share a bit more on one case study that we mentioned in our School of Data presentation…

Case Study: NYC DOT’s Reimagining Canal Street Proposal

NYC DOT has for many years been running public meetings on a Canal Street Safety Improvement Plan, considering options for improving street safety following several major incidents over the past decade and further back. MCB3 resolutions regarding this proposal, also called Reimagining Canal Street, stretch back over at least 7 years, to 2019.

Tracking down all of these resolutions across the monthly meeting notes would require searching through dozens of PDFs. Or, if you were a newer MCB3 member, you may not be aware at all that there is a history of resolutions on this topic that you can draw on for context on new presentations from NYC DOT.

Enter Block Party’s resolution archive. Searching the keywords “Canal Street redesign” brings up several resolutions, which provide insight into how long this proposal has been in the works and what has previously been discussed and requested by MCB3. Using our tool, you can easily click through and explore each of these relevant resolutions.

The summarization features on Block Party can also save you from reading through paragraphs and paragraphs of somewhat jargon-filled text.

We created a summary from the full resolution text in order to make the information more accessible. Here is what the full resolution looked like - not many have the time or patience to read through all these texts.

Not only do you get the summarizations, but if you do want to read the full resolution text, that is provided in a toggle button on the page for the resolution. Further, if you want even more context on what occurred at the full board meeting, the relevant resolution was voted on, you can click the “View Meeting PDF” button below the resolution title.

With this tool, finding resolutions over years of meetings can be instantaneous. Quickly skimming resolution summaries can help you identify if results match what you’re looking for. Links to the full resolution text, meeting notes PDF, or even going over to the transcripts archive section of our website and finding the transcribed meeting recording containing that resolution, all provide additional information and context to the resolution itself.

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Any opinions expressed below are solely my own and do not represent the views of Manhattan Community Board 3.

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Manhattan Community Board 3 Mar 2026 Full Board Meeting

Tuesday, Mar 24, 2026 - 6:30pm

PS 20 - 166 Essex Street

Meeting Highlights:

• City budget pressures dominate elected officials’ reports — Councilmembers Martre and Epstein both flagged the need for new City revenue sources, with Epstein advocating for expanded DCWP enforcement and Martre noting the Council is exploring alternatives to Mayor Mamdani’s proposed property tax increase; participatory budgeting runs April 11–19th.

• Immigration enforcement response ramps up — Multiple elected officials reported new legislative and community efforts around ICE activity, including Assemblymember Grace Lee’s ICE Contact Transparency Act, the MELT Act, and the RADAR Act, while Borough President Hoylman-Sigal’s office is hosting ICE preparedness trainings.

• MCB3 eyes district-wide slow zone — The Transportation committee advanced a resolution to lower speed limits to 20 MPH across MCB3 and 15 MPH near schools, building on the City’s recent implementation of Sammy’s Law in the borough.

Notes from board meeting:

Public Session

• Residents of E 11th Street filed formal complaint to elected officials regarding the bike delivery worker hub located on the street

  • request for MCB3 to pass a resolution calling for action

• Primary care physician working in the East Village is concerned about their patients’ safety given the City’s proposed plan to move an intake shelter next door

  • additional responsibilities of the next-door shelter may affect level of care provided to existing vulnerable population already served by the clinic

  • there will be a public forum on April 7th at 5:30 PM at E 12th St

Elected Officials Reports

• Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s Liaison

  • Office will be in touch soon with Manhattan CB applicants regarding their applications

  • Partnering with BetaNYC to produce community report cards tracking community complaints and stats

  • Working on how to respond to ongoing ICE activity in Manhattan, hosting ICE preparedness trainings

  • Worked with the Mayor on the implementation of Sammy’s Law to establish 15 MPH slow zones around schools in the borough

  • Launched a BPO volunteer corps - please sign-up!

    

  • Monitoring the situation at E 11th Street closely

• Congressmember Dan Goldman’s Liaison

  • EBT Card security legislation has been officially introduced in Congress

  • ICE has been sent to airports around the nation

• Assemblymember Grace Lee’s Liaison

  • Introduced the ICE contact transparency act - creates a public database of contracts ICE is a member of

  • MELT Act - holds ICE agents accountable by prohibiting agents from wearing masks while performing duties

  • RADAR Act - requires reporting of data regarding federal immigration enforcement activity in NY

• Assemblymember Deborah Glick’s Liaison

  • Bill passed to protect State lands from oil and gas development

  • April 9th - shredding event - 9-12 PM at NYCAids Memorial

• State Senator Brian Kavanagh’s Liaison

  • Free tax preparation event on 4/2 3-6 PM

  • Mobile legal clinic on 4/17 10AM-3PM

  • Lots of State budget updates

• Councilmember Christopher Martre - attended!

  • Working to get bilingual street signs put up in Chinatown

  • Budget process in the City has started - you can watch agency oversight hearings in the City Council!

    • Speaker and the Council are looking into ways to generate revenue that won’t involve Mayor Mamdani’s proposed property tax increase

  • Participatory budgeting will occur April 11-19th, CM Martre’s team working with Henry Street Settlement on outreach

    • participate and have a voice in where the City spends $1 million in community funds!

  • Bill in the Council to make outdoor dining year-round again

• Councilmember Harvey Epstein - attended!

  • Supports increasing DCWP enforcement - hiring more lawyers in this agency brings in more revenue for the City, more than the salaries of the new lawyers

    • City needs to find new sources of revenue to close the budget gap

  • Merchant’s House, landmarked site that was part of the Underground Railroad, is raising concerns about an application for a next-door development that could threaten its stability

Board Reports

• Board Chair’s Report

  • Looking at economic, educational, public health, environmental, etc outcomes for MCD3 and how they vary for our district versus others

• District Manager’s Report

  • MCB3 sponsoring the upcoming No Kings March

  • MCB3 now sending out a newsletter every other Monday - subscribe!

  • Any community group that would like to be listed on MCB3’s website just has to fill out the form on the website

  • Preparing for term limits, creating timelines and documents by committee

    • first time limits will kick in next year, exactly one year from now

  • Working with several elected officials’ offices to resolve the issues regarding E 11th Street delivery bike hub

  • DOT/SLA virtual informational session open to any business in MCB3 being organized - more information to come

  • MCB3 is one of the top 5 districts in the city for rat findings, mostly concentrated on public properties

  • Businesses have been clear that their main problem with sidewalk cafe regulations is the expenses associated with taking down/putting up the sheds so frequently

Committee Reports

See Committee Meeting recordings here!

• Transportation, Public Safety, & Environment

  • IBO talked about NYC DOT’s progress on the Streets Plan - some parts great, others not so much

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  • Resolution supporting a regional slow zone in MCD3 - lower the speed limit on all applicable streets in Manhattan Community District 3 to 20 miles-per-hour, and to 15 miles-per-hour on all streets adjacent to schools in the District

• Health, Seniors, & Human Services / Youth, Education, & Human Rights

  • Federal budget cuts, especially to SNAP, are worsening food security in the City

• Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing

  • Resolution for NYC EDC to consider conducting a study on Essex Market to better understand its challenges, opportunities, etc

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Parks Manager Updates

Parks operations are moving forward as they transition out of the winter season.

• Maintenance & Safety: Parks is currently removing a downed tree near Broome and Grant Streets.

• Rules Enforcement and monitoring:

  • There is active discussion regarding a new Bike Patrol to better monitor the area from East River Park to Pier 42.

  • At Sarah D. Roosevelt Park, Parks is cracking down on unauthorized bikes (including Amazon cargo bikes) riding through the Rivington Transverse.

  • Parks Enforcement Patrol (PEP) will use plainclothes officers to monitor Captain Jacob Joseph Park for illegal dumping, which carries a $1,000 fine.

• Community Involvement: A recent cleanup at Tompkins Square Park saw 30 volunteers participating.

Questions for the Parks Manager

• Q: Can we extend park hours? Currently, some parks close at 6:00 PM despite the extra daylight.

  • A: Between May and September, staff levels typically allow for closing times to be extended to 8:00 PM.

• Q: Can we trim at-risk trees at Sarah D. Roosevelt Park?

Public Speaker Comments

• Esther Yan, who runs an after-school program, complained that a community playground is consistently locked. She asked about why children in her program cannot play basketball at the park when school is not in session.

  • Committee response: please email the Community Board 3 office. The playground should not be always closed.

• Valenteena Jones thanked Parks leadership for their quick response in checking the functionality of East River Park bathrooms

• Tommy Road complained that Parks is the only Community Board 3 committee that doesn’t host meetings virtually or on livestream. Also, complained that East River park is now overrun by dogs. To quote one of his neighbors, “the lawns are covered in poo and pee” especially near the amphitheater. Why does the committee not follow up on resident complaints?

  • Committee response: please direct park complaints to the Parks Department. We do not have budget for virtual meetings. But next month, we are hoping this building (BRC’s Senior Center on 30 Delancey St) gets upgraded with cameras for virtual meetings.

RFP for the Development, Operation, and Maintenance of a Food Service Concession between Delancey Street and Rivington Street at the Allen Street Malls

The long-shuttered bathroom at the Allen Street Malls (between Delancey and Rivington) has been discussed in past meetings. At December’s meeting, rule changes were discussed to enable NYC Parks to take over the space from the Department of Transportation (DOT). This meeting discussed a Request for Proposal (RFP) notice sent out on January 2nd to find an organization to maintain the public bathroom as part of a food stand (“concession”).

The RFP is a 25-year term for a food service concession. It will include renovations and accessibility upgrades to the space.

Questions about the Allen Street Malls RFP

• Q: What if the concessionaire quits?

  • A: That is a breach of contract. Practically speaking, we would simply issue a new RFP.

• Q: Do you have estimate on renovation cost?

  • A: No. But, the cost of bringing the building up to code will be substantial.

• Q: Does this include outdoor space?

  • A: Yes, that is a possibility. It depends on the bid. Bids do not have to utilize all of the mall space up to Rivington, but they can.

• Q: What is the selection criteria for selecting a winning bid?

  • A: To clarify, this not a request for bids, just proposals. RFPs get scored on multiple criteria including operator experience, pricing, the amount of capital improvements investments, design, and sustainability within the design.

• Q: Could members of the public give feedback on the RFP submissions?

  • A: No, selection is a closed, competitive process to prevent collusion.

• Q: When will the bathroom be open?

  • A: The bathrooms should be open during concession operating hours (hours may vary by proposal)

• Q: What’s the current state of the ULURP discussed during the December committee meeting?

  • A: City Council had a hearing about it recently. We are operating under the assumption it will pass.

• Q: What is the timeline here?

  • A: We’d like to issue the RFP next month. The RFP is usually out for 8-12 weeks. Then, it takes another 2-3 months to a make selection. Then we need to negotiate a contract. And then the CB would weigh in again.

• Q: Have any parts of the building been deemed historical?

  • A: No, it is not a historical landmark.

• Q: Will there be bollards to protect visitors to the space given the high amount of vehicle traffic nearby?

  • A: Yes, that is part of the RFP.

+ POOL: Update on Construction Timeline and Public Programming

What is + POOL?

• It is a non-profit that is building a pool that will temporarily float on the East River. The group received attention in recent years for their idea to put a plus-shaped pool in the East River.

• In addition to the pool, the organization hosts learn-to-swim programs for swimmers from low-income backgrounds. It also provides water treatment education and water quality data collection. Currently, it has five classes running. They are free and open to the public but require registration.

• This pool is part of a Governor Kathy Hochul agenda item.

• They plan to have a full summer of testing this year and then open next year, in 2027.

Updates on the pool from + POOL:

• The floating platform has been constructed. Currently, there is a barge in the East River helping the organization measure the distance between the riverbed mud and the bedrock beneath it.

• The floating pool will have to receive a series of approvals from federal, state, and local authorities like the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, NYC Parks, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for power lines.

• The NYC Department of Health (NYCDOH) in particular has an extensive six-phase testing protocol.

• A major financial partner for the pool is the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

NYCDOH Presentation on the Pier 35 Pool

• Responsibilities of the NYCDOH include inspecting city beaches and pools. They also investigate drowning and diseases related to bodies of water.

• NYCDOH will be evaluating the + POOL’s conceptual design and feasibility this summer

• Within Community District 3, there are 6 public pools (4 pools, 2 wading pools). There are also 16 private pools.

• + POOL’s project differs from other city pools in a substantial ways:

  • It uses non-potable water (all other pools use tap water)

  • It is vulnerable to nearby sewer runoff after a storm

  • It does not use chlorine, unlike all other city pools

• Key questions NYCDOH wants to answer includes: what water capacity should the pool have? How many swimmers can it accommodate, and does that fluctuate throughout the day? How will necessary chemicals be stored? Will lifeguards be able to handle the noise from the nearby subway? Will there be algae growth around the pool?

Questions for + POOL and the NYCDOH

• Q: What is the expected season for the pool?

  • A: + POOL would like to have a six month season. The pool would be removed and stored during the off-season.

• Q: What happens during a defecation event?

  • A: Swimmers would leave the pool and the issue cleaned out.

• Q: Will there be salt in the pool water?

  • A: Yes, it is brackish water that is non-potable.

• Q: What about wildlife that sneaks into the pool? Is there protocol for that?

  • A: The filtration system has been reviewed by environmental authorities (to handle sea cucumbers, fish, etc.)

• Q: Will there be community hours? Pool needs to be more than free -- has to be equitable for the local community.

  • A: Yes, we are committed to matching Parks Pools hours. There will be surveys to understand community needs around swimming and educational use of the pool. Given the size of the pool, there will probably be 2 hour sessions for swimmers.

• Q: So, how are you disinfecting the water if you aren’t using chlorine?

  • A: Mechanical filters allow us to eliminate bacteria. UV treatment get rid of viruses.

• Q: Are we testing for heavy metals? We know there is arsenic in the land nearby so that may leech into the water.

  • A: We did initial testing in 2024 for a variety of items including heavy metals. Those results were shared with the Department of Health. There will be more testing once the pool is installed this summer.

East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) and Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resiliency (BMCR) Updates

• Asbestos abatement is ongoing near East 13th St and FDR Drive. During that process, materials are sealed in bags and trucked away. You may see workers wearing Tyvek suits completing this work, but it is nothing to be alarmed about.

• The project team will have virtual events on March 17 and 24 with NYCHA Riis discussing overnight work happening nearby.

• The tennis building is beginning to go up. The public restroom building will start being built in April.

• For BMCR, flood protections for the NYCHA Smith Houses were discussed. They include a mix of flip-up gates and solid walls.

Questions about ESCR and BMCR

• Q: The tennis courts in East River park flood whenever there is heavy rain. Are you all aware of this?

  • A: We will look into this.