DOB Commissioner Tagani on agency realignment with housing portfolio
Commissioner Amin Tagani describes DOB's strategic realignment into the housing and planning portfolio, explaining how this positions DOB to leverage data and expertise to remove barriers to affordable housing and advance equity.
Good morning, Chair Sanchez and members of the Committee on Housing and Buildings.
My name is Amin Tagani, and I serve as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings.
I'm joined by DOB subject matter experts from our Enforcement, Development, and Sustainability Bureaus.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify regarding Intro 717, which would require DOB to notify property owners when open permits...
With open permits that must receive DOB sign-off, and to join my colleagues in government to speak to the mayor's comprehensive block-by-block housing plan.
For DOB, the block-by-block housing plan presented a unique opportunity to collaborate from the ground up, bringing our processes, expertise, and experience to bear in translating the mayor's vision for addressing the housing crisis in a substantive and
equitable way and strategy.
It was an opportunity not only to help shape the plan, but to work alongside other New Yorkers to turn the vision into results.
The groundwork began with a strategically important decision to realign DOB within the administration and move it into the housing and planning portfolio.
As the agency responsible for
Enforcing the zoning resolution, maintaining the building code, and stewarding the policies that establish the regulatory oversight of more than 1.1 million buildings, DOB has deep and consequential ties to the work of housing and planning.
Bringing the agency into closer alignment with this portfolio created a cleaner, more direct connection between our regulatory responsibilities and the administration's housing priorities.
It positioned DOB to better leverage our process, our data, our expertise, and day-to-day interactions with the built environment to help remove the barriers that too often stand between New Yorkers and the stability that comes with having an affordable place to call home.
This alignment was more than an organizational change.
It was a strategic opportunity to ensure that DOB was not simply regulating the city's buildings, but actively contributing to the broader effort to expand housing opportunity, advance equity, and deliver meaningful results for New Yorkers.