Chair Sanchez questions HPD and DOB on staffing capacity and headcount

So I'm going to ask two questions and two topics, and then I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues for their questions before coming back for a second round.

Just so you know, the order in which you have signed up is Councilmember Wilson, Nurse, Public Advocate Williams, and then Councilmember Epstein.

If there's anybody else with questions, please let Austin know.

Okay, all right.

Well, thank you so much for being here today, for all of the work, the big picture, the big level thinking around the housing crisis in the city of New York.

I want to start with a theme that I've heard in many conversations regarding the housing plan.

This theme that we started to discuss during the executive budget hearing, that the plan's ambitions are not necessarily backed with the necessary resources to implement them.

We should be aggressively closing high staff vacancy rates in key offices, scaling up staffing overall, investing deeply in core agency functions that don't always make the front page.

But we haven't seen that, particularly in the preservation, the Office of Development, the Preservation Division, the Office of Enforcement and Neighborhood

Services, Code Enforcement and Litigation Divisions, and within buildings, within the inspectorial units citywide, and especially for the specialized enforcement functions.

So there are several commitments.

that seem to indicate that you all need a lot more staffing to carry these out, the roof-to-cellar inspections, aggressive use of 7A, criminal charges against the worst landlords.

And so the first question is around that.

So HPD, what is the budgeted headcount of enforcement staff, the actual headcount, and the vacancy rate for fiscal year 26 versus 27?

What increases are you making to the enforcement headcount in order to meet some of these goals?

Sorry, am I on?

Yes.

Thank you, Council Members.

So to start, I just want to give a picture of both the development staff and the enforcement staff within the agency.

I know there's always a lot of talk about how much staff do we have and how much staff do we need.

And, of course,

We love getting new staff.

But I do want to point out that right now the total headcount within the enforcement division is 993 staff, which is actually up 11% over the last five years.

On the development side, the staff total is 353, which is up 19% over the past five years.

As you know, we were granted significant new staff lines as part of both the housing plan and the speed initiative.

A total of 41 new positions were allocated to the agency, 24, sorry, 27 for development staff and 14 for our both enforcement and litigation units.

So, yes, I do think we have been given a lot more staff to do the work laid out in the housing plan.

Thank you.