Commission Bio: Dan Garodnick

Dan Garodnick, appointed by Mayor Eric L. Adams, began serving as Director of the New York City Department of City Planning and Chair of the City Planning Commission in February 2022.

Dan served in the New York City Council for 12 years, representing the East Side of Manhattan, and was known as one of New York's most independent voices and effective legislators. Dan chaired the City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committees and served as a member of the Land Use Committee. 

Garodnick, a lawyer who has also served as a not-for-profit executive, is best known for his skill in negotiating complicated land use matters, such as the rezoning of 80 blocks of East Midtown and the Vanderbilt Corridor. This rezoning – approved unanimously by the City Council – not only has already spurred energy and new growth in a key commercial district, but is expected to deliver nearly a billion dollars in improvements to subways and public spaces in Midtown over the next 20 years. Garodnick also negotiated the largest affordable housing preservation deal in New York City’s history – 5,000 middle-class housing units in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village. He wrote a book on that subject, Saving Stuyvesant Town, which Amazon called one of the best nonfiction books of 2021. 

During his time in the City Council, Garodnick authored and passed 60 bills, which included relief for small businesses from the Commercial Rent Tax, a right for tenants to sue a landlord for harassment, a biotech tax credit, transparency in the use of economic development incentives, the City’s first “green” energy code, and various good government reforms. 

Immediately before he took the helm at the City Planning Commission and the Department of City Planning, Garodnick was President and CEO of the Riverside Park Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization advocating for a six mile park on Manhattan's West Side.  

Prior to his public service, Garodnick was a litigator at the New York law firm of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP.  He has a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. He lives with his wife and two sons in Manhattan.