City Council grills Mamdani’s pick for key housing position

New York City Council members grilled John Mangin, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pick for a key housing position, during a lengthy confirmation hearing on Tuesday, pressing him on his views on development, homeownership and whether he’d defer to council member and local voices while weighing in on the city’s land use process. 

Mangin, who currently leads the Department of City Planning’s housing division, was nominated by the mayor in June to chair the Board of Standards and Appeals, an independent five-member board that oversees zoning requests and disputes in the city. Looming large over Mangin’s potential confirmation, however, is the fact that this board recently gained additional powers over the greenlighting and fast-tracking of some affordable housing projects. This was one of several charter revisions approved by voters via ballot proposals last year that diluted the City Council’s authority to reject or approve new housing in their districts. Changes included allowing some projects to sidestep City Council review – including setting up a fast-track for affordable housing through this board – and the creation of an appeals board with the ability to overrule City Council rejections of certain projects.

The board’s new power, as well as the fact that Mangin worked on the commission that advanced those changes, has made his quest for confirmation a hot issue. The majority of the City Council staunchly opposed the overhauls to the land use process last year, seeing them as an attack on the council’s longstanding practice of deferring to the local council members on land use actions. Now the fate of one of the people who helped weaken the body’s authority over projects in their districts is in their hands. 

Mangin was in the hot seat for nearly three hours Tuesday, facing council members’ questioning far longer than the mayor’s other two nominees for separate positions. Throughout the hearing, council members repeatedly sought assurances that Mangin and the board wouldn’t disregard local voices while making decisions to approve or reject housing projects. 

Promising to carefully consider council members’ input on any projects that affect their district, Mangin vowed that he would have “a completely open door policy” as chair. He was less definitive on how consequential that input may ultimately be. “I believe that local voices are paramount when it comes to projects, but also I’ve learned in my career that local voices aren’t the only voices that matter for land use decisions that have an effect on (the) broader community within the city level,” he said. 

Other concerns council members cited centered on some of the things Mangin wrote in a paper for the Stanford University Law and Policy Review more than a decade ago, including the idea that “wealthy homeowner cartels” are to blame for the housing supply issue and that policies like community benefit agreements can actually end up increasing housing prices. Noting that he hadn’t written the paper about New York City specifically, Mangin attested that he’s a strong supporter of home ownership. He also said that he believes community benefit agreements are an important piece of tackling the housing crisis, though they must be carried out in conjunction with building enough housing. 

Mangin’s supporters in the pro-housing space are many, ranging from groups like the Real Estate Board of New York to Open New York. That puts the City Council in a tough spot. Rejecting his nomination could open the body up to accusations of NIMBY-ism at a time in which the city is grappling with a historic housing crisis. 

Some, like Dan Garodnick, former director of the Department of City Planning, voiced strong defenses of Mangin at Tuesday’s hearing. 

“A lot of what happened at the hearing today was taking small bits and pieces of words that John has written in law review journals,” Garodnick told council members. “Yes he is an academic and yes he is a booster of all types of housing at all levels and all corners of the city, but what should not get lost here is he is as qualified and excellent a candidate as one might find for this role.”

One person markedly absent from Tuesday’s hearing was Speaker Julie Menin, who has so far publicly refrained from taking a position on Mangin’s nomination. 

 “Today’s hearing provided Council Members with an important opportunity to hear directly from Mr. Mangin and ask questions about his background and potential approach to the BSA,” she said in a statement after the hearing. “I had a productive meeting with Mr. Mangin last week, and I look forward to consulting with my colleagues in the coming days as we review his nomination.”

The full City Council vote to approve or reject Mangin’s nomination will likely take place next week at the upcoming stated meeting, according to a spokesperson for Menin.