Conference Speakers 2016
Featured Speakers:
Plenary Speaker:
Vicki Been is the Commisisoner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Ms. Been is responsible for leading the nation's largest municipal housing agency and is charged with creating and implementing Mayor Bill de Blasio's Five-Borough, Ten-Year Plan, a bold initiative to create or preserve 200,000 affordable homes and apartments over 10 years. Prior to her appointment as HPD Commissioner, Ms. Been was Director for NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a nationally renowned academic research center devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate, and housing development. She also served as the Boxer Family Professor of Law at NYU School of Law and Affiliated Professor of Public Policy of the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Been's scholarship at the Furman Center focused on the intersection of land of use, urban policy, and affordable housing, and addressed such issues as how to build more resilient and inclusive communities, how zoning regulations shape development patterns, and the fairness and effectiveness of foreclosure responses such as mortgage modifications. She has done extensive research on the housing affected by Superstorm Sandy, the nexus between development and environmental justice, land use, and housing policy reforms needed to promote racial and economic integration, and on a variety of affordable housing and land use policies, from inclusionary zoning to supportive housing developments.
Co-author of a widely used land use casebook, Land Use Controls, Been has served on the boards of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods and the Municipal Art Society, chairing the program committees of both boards. She also has served on the boards of Pratt Center for Community Economic Development and the Next American City, and was a member of the New York City Council's Workforce Housing Task Force and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Special Subcommittee on Community Benefit Agreements. Been is a 1983 graduate of New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar. She clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld of the Southern District of New York and Justice Harry Blackmun of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Keynote Speaker:
Doug Farr is a pioneer in sustainable placemaking, an internationally-published author, a dynamic speaker, and a thought leader who defined the field of sustainable urbanism; an international design movement integrating urbanism, infrastructure, architecture, and behavior.
Doug Farr is the founding principal and president of Farr Associates Architecture and Urban Design, the 2012 AIA Chicago Firm of the Year. Doug is a national leader in planning and designing sustainable neighborhoods and buildings. He is a published author who lectures widely on the topics of urbanism and sustainability. Under his leadership, Farr Associates designed the world’s third LEED-Platinum project, the Chicago Center for Green Technology. To date, Farr Associates has designed seven LEED-Platinum buildings, two of which are net-zero energy projects, and four LEED Neighborhood developments.
Doug founded the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) Core Committee– the interdisciplinary group of professionals who created the first rating system for sustainable land development. Launched in 2009, LEED-ND integrates smart growth, walkability, and green building practices into standards and metrics that scale up sustainability to a neighborhood level.
Based on the firm’s pioneering sustainable design practice and insights gained from chairing LEED-ND, Doug authored the urban planning best-seller Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature in 2008. His follow-up book entitled Sustainable Nation will be released in 2017.
Doug recently served as chairman of the Executive Board of the Congress for the New Urbanism. He also serves on the boards of the BioRegional Development Group and Elevate Energy (formerly CNT Energy). He is an architecture graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia University.
Panelists:
William G. Balter, President, Wilder Balter Partners, Inc.
Nanette H. Bourne, Senior Vice President, AKRF, Inc.
John Cappello, Esq., Partner, Jacobowitz and Gubitz, LLP
William V. Cuddy, Jr., Executive Vice President, CBRE, Advisory & Transaction Services
James T. DeWeese, Fellow, Harrison Institute for Public Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Victor Dover, FAICP, LEED-AP, CNU-Accredited, Principal, Dover, Kohl & Partners
Donald L. Elliott, FAICP, Director, Clarion Associates, LLC
Jonathan L. Feinstein, Senior Vice President, Energy, VHB
Peter Feroe, AICP, Technical Director, Planning, AKRF, Inc.
Anthony B. Gioffre, III, Esq., Cuddy & Feder LLP
Christopher N. Gomez, AICP, Commissioner of Planning, City of White Plains
Jeff Irish, PE, President, Hudson Solar
David M. Kooris, AICP, Director, Rebuild by Design and National Disaster Resilience, State of Connecticut Department of Housing
Alan Mallach, FAICP, Senior Fellow, Center for Community Progress
Gina Martini, AICP, ENV SP, Senior Project Manager, VHB
Dwight H. Merriam, FAICP, Esq., Partner, Robinson & Cole LLP
Valerie Monastra, AICP, Director of Planning, VHB
John R. Nolon, Esq, Of Counsel, Land Use Law Center and Professor of Law, Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
Rose Noonan, Esq., Executive Director, Housing Action Council
William S. Null, Esq., Cuddy & Feder LLP
William Oberkehr, NYS Solar Ombudsman, Sustainable CUNY – CUNY Solar Team
Nina S. Peek, AICP, Vice President, AKRF, Inc.
Linda D. Puglisi, Town Supervisor, Town of Cortlandt
Thomas M. Roach, Mayor, City of White Plains
Michelle Robbins, AICP, Senior Planner, Town of Cortlandt
Steven M. Silverberg, Esq., Partner, Silverberg Zalantis LLP
Lester D. Steinman, Esq., Partner, McCarthy Fingar LLP
Andrew V. Tung, ASLA, Esq., LEED AP, Partner, Divney Tung Schwalbe, LLP
Kris Van Orsdel, Managing Director, Infrastructure & Local Government Programs, NY Governor's Office of Storm Recovery
Bonnie Von Ohlsen, AICP, RLA, LEED Green Assoc., Director of Environmental Planning, JMC PLLC
Lucy Wildrick, Partner, Political Process,, Street-Works
Michael Allan Wolf, Esq., Professor of Law & Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Michael D. Zarin, Esq., Partner, Zarin & Steinmetz