May 28, 2025

For the last three years, Daphne Rubin-Vega has played a central role in helping HPD deliver on its core mission: to ensure that every New Yorker has a safe, affordable place to call home. Recently, she sat down with Aaron Short of Commercial Observer to talk about her experience as a native New Yorker working for the City, navigating complex deals, and learning about new communities each and every day.

New York City’s Daphne Rubin-Vega Is a Go-To Attorney on Housing Deals 

[Aaron Short, May 27, 2025] 

·  New York has always revered its closers.  

·Then, there’s Daphne Rubin-Vega. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s deputy general counsel has quietly built up a reputation in housing and finance circles as one of the agency’s best closers on complex affordable housing deals.  

·  “We do see ourselves as the most valuable player in the capital stack,” Rubin-Vega said. “We’re trying to make sure borrowers are financially stable. Otherwise, we jeopardize our affordable housing goals.”  

· “Lenders are really coming in at the end, when everything has been tied up into a bow, but once something is on my desk, the plan is that we want to close it,” Rubin-Vega said. “We’re not looking to be the obstacle to something being realized. You have to be coordinated across agencies and internally to understand what’s going on.”   

· Rubin-Vega didn’t set out to become an attorney for a city agency, but she developed a nuanced understanding of how New York works while growing up in an Upper West Side co-op.  

· “Public engagement is what attracted me to land use,” she said. “There’s a clear connection to community involvement in the development of their neighborhoods, along with the technical assistance and tools around the process, and how it works together to create the city that people want to live in.”  

·  She was promoted to her current role in September of last year. Her colleagues, including acting HPD Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, say they appreciate Rubin-Vega’s ability to identify problems and find solutions — no matter how complex the issues appear.   

·  “She brings a rare combination of calm and focus that makes her an invaluable presence in any room,” Tigani said. “She’s also a skilled consensus builder, earning equal respect both within our organization and among the many external stakeholders we work with on affordable housing deals.”  

·  “There was a lot of hair on that deal [The Lirio],” Munsun Park, director of transactions for the MTA’s transit oriented development team, said. “There was a zoning lot merger, the retention of an easement, the master condominium structure — everything was thrown at it. She was wonderful. This could have been delayed and not built for years, but it happened.”  

· Rubin-Vega was happy to work on a project that allowed long-time New Yorkers to stay in the city she loves.  

· “It’s wonderful to have the city where I’m from also be my client,” Rubin-Vega said. “Every time I work on a project, I learn about an entirely new community I have no memories of in the city I’m from. I think that’s fascinating.”  

Read the full article here.  

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