Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Office of Neighborhood Strategies

About The Agency

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city’s housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.

• We maintain building and resident safety and health.
• We create opportunities for New Yorkers through housing affordability.
• We engage New Yorkers to build and sustain neighborhood strength and diversity.
  
  

HPD is entrusted with fulfilling these objectives through the goals and strategies of Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness, Mayor Adams’ comprehensive housing framework. To support this important work, the administration has committed $5 billion in new capital funding, bringing the 10-year planned investment in housing to $22 billion the largest in the city’s history. This investment, coupled with a commitment to reduce administrative and regulatory barriers, is a multi-pronged strategy to tackle New York City’s complex housing crisis, by addressing homelessness and housing instability, promoting economic stability and mobility, increasing homeownership opportunities, improving health and safety, and increasing opportunities for equitable growth.

Your Team

The Office of Neighborhood Strategies (ONS) is charged with ensuring that HPD’s development and preservation efforts are guided by meaningful community engagement and coordinated with public investments in infrastructure and services, as put forth in the Mayor's Housing Plan.

ONS is composed of two divisions and a cross-divisional unit reporting to the Associate Commissioner:

• The Division of Planning & Predevelopment (P&P) is central to developing and managing HPD's housing production pipeline from project proposal phases through the land use review and entitlement process, to ensure that HPD's investments contribute to building strong, healthy, resilient neighborhoods in all five boroughs.
• The Division of Neighborhood Development & Stabilization (ND&S) leads the agency's commitment to neighborhood planning and strategic preservation through engagement with tenants, landlords, community leaders, and neighborhood stakeholders as we work to enable strong and healthy neighborhoods anchored by affordable housing.
• The Strategic Initiatives Unit leads special ONS initiatives and provides essential technical, planning, and policy support to staff and the Associate Commissioner of Neighborhood Strategies. The Director of Strategic Initiatives leads this team.
  
  

Your Impact

As the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Office of Neighborhood Strategies, you will lead a talented group of professionals and experts in important planning, policy, and operational efforts to meet the agency’s goals and vision. You will play a leading role in groundbreaking initiatives related to innovation in housing models; use of City-owned land; equitable neighborhood growth; and support for tenants, homeowners, and community-based organizations, helping ONS to achieve the greatest impact possible.

Your Role

Your role as Director of Strategic Initiatives will be to oversee complex policy and planning initiatives, including managing timelines, processes, and relationships with stakeholders across the agency, City government, and non-governmental partners. You will also work closely with both ONS divisions to provide analytical, logistical, and operations support to help ONS and HPD advance strategic goals and improve and streamline Office-wide operations.

Your Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the ONS Chief of Staff, the Director of Strategic Initiatives will be responsible for supervising a team of two energetic, thoughtful, and engaged staff to:

• Coordinate and support strategy development and project implementation for various housing policy initiatives (e.g., Shared Housing Roadmap and other initiatives as outlined in the Administration’s housing plan), including supporting the development of work plans, delegating to relevant units, briefing leadership, and coordinating with other relevant HPD divisions and City agencies
• Develop operational standards and procedures that will enhance the quality, efficiency, and coordination of ONS’s work
• Ensure consistency in technical, analytical, and planning approaches (e.g., site-based vs. neighborhood-based planning; project managing, tracking, and reporting milestones, etc.) across ONS teams and between ONS and other relevant HPD divisions
• Act as a liaison with other HPD divisions to ensure their programs, tools, and guidelines serve ONS priorities, and vice versa
• Seed new projects, in collaboration with multiple teams, that advance the mission of ONS
• Provide technical support on special projects that are assigned to ONS from the Commissioner’s Office
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues that arise on complex and/or high-priority planning projects and initiatives across teams, including technical issues related to zoning and land use approvals, financial feasibility, design, neighborhood-wide rezoning, and procurement for human services contracts
  
  

Preferred Skills

• Subject-matter expertise: Knowledge of New York City government, affordable housing, and urban planning issues; a minimum of six years of professional experience in a related field; candidates with master’s degrees in urban planning, urban studies, public policy, or real estate are strongly preferred.
• Exceptional project management, including ability to execute: Proven ability to manage complex projects with multiple internal and external stakeholders; to receive direction and anticipate next steps; to think through, communicate, document, organize, and execute on project goals and keep other team members on schedule. Ability to manage up, down, and across teams. Attentive to details, organized, and has the ability to follow through.
• Effective people management: Experience managing teams and an interest in building staff development and coaching skills.
• Superior problem-solving capabilities: The ability to combine analytic abilities with empathy and persuasion to break complex challenges into manageable tasks, generate consensus on contentious issues, and influence both subject-matter experts and senior-level decision-makers.
• Outstanding communication skills: Extremely strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. Proven ability to produce high-quality materials in a variety of formats for internal and external audiences.
• Strong analytical skills: Ability to work with, understand, analyze, and communicate qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial information in a variety of formats.
• Good judgment: Ability analyze a situation, understand what is needed, understand when additional input is needed, flag or resolve issues as necessary, and escalate when appropriate.
• Collaborative and creative spirit: Excited to be part of a team, to work with others to solve problems creatively, and get quality work done. Ability to hear, take, and give feedback effectively and productively and to motivate peers to get the job done.
  
  

Minimum Qualifications

Graduation from an accredited college with a baccalaureate degree and three years of progressively responsible supervisory, administrative or consultative, experience in large-scale real estate management or maintenance operations, government-subsidized relocation activities or a related field. Graduate work in an appropriate field may be substituted for up to two years of the general experience required.

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

As a prospective employee of the City of New York, you may be eligible for federal loan forgiveness programs and state repayment assistance programs. For more information, please visit the U.S. Department of Education’s website at https://studentaid.gov/pslf/.

Residency Requirement

New York City residency is generally required within 90 days of appointment. However, City Employees in certain titles who have worked for the City for 2 continuous years may also be eligible to reside in Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Westchester, Rockland, or Orange County. To determine if the residency requirement applies to you, please discuss with the agency representative at the time of interview.

Additional Information

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.