City Planning Director Dan Garodnick, Key to ‘City of Yes’ Passage, To Step Down

During four years at the agency’s helm, Garodnick helped pass the first major citywide rezoning in decades and rezoned five neighborhoods. Mayor Mamdani will have to pick a new head planner that can help him reach his ambitious housing goals.

It’s a “new era” at the Department of City Planning as well.

Director Dan Garodnick informed Mayor Zohran Mamdani that he would be stepping down from the role “in the coming weeks,” according to an email shared with staff earlier this morning, City Limits first reported.

Under Gardonick, the agency passed the first major citywide rezoning since 1961—“City of Yes”—an effort to create more housing in every neighborhood amid a citywide housing shortage that has pushed rents higher.

“After four incredibly productive and rewarding years at the Department of City Planning, the time is right for me to move on from this role. I am incredibly proud of all that we accomplished, including enabling more homes in four years than had been in the past twenty, and have deep affection and respect for the tremendous team at DCP,” said Garodnick in a statement to City Limits.

At DCP’s helm, he oversaw both City of Yes and five neighborhood rezonings—in the Bronx, Midtown Manhattan, Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Jamaica, Queens, and Long Island City— changes that unlocked 130,000 units of housing, according to the agency.

Garodnick had been in consideration to be one of Mamdani’s top deputies, but the new mayor went in a different direction, appointing Department of Housing Preservation and Development and DCP veteran Leila Bozorg as his deputy mayor for housing and planning.

In December, Garodnick shuttered the agency’s urban design division, a move that puzzled some planners.

Mayor Mamdani has yet to name a replacement for the city’s lead planner. The agency, which can advance large zoning actions and reviews land use applications for individual projects, plays a crucial role in housing development, which Mamdani has promised to accelerate.

“I will be staying on to support Mayor Mamdani and his team during the transition, and wish them only the best as they work to deliver a more affordable city,” said Garodnick in a statement.

It remains unclear how Mamdani wants to use the agency to shape the city.

In his campaign platform, he supported comprehensive planning—a unified vision for growth and development, and the infrastructure investments that come with it. While city leaders have tried and failed to adopt comprehensive planning in the past, New York is the only major U.S. city without a comprehensive plan. 

Mamdani also expressed openness to transit-oriented development on the campaign trail, a policy of increasing housing density near transit hubs.

His team did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the transition.

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