December 6, 2007 – Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced that Daniel L. Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, is stepping down from his post on or around December 31, 2007. Doctoroff has spearheaded the City’s economic agenda for the last six years, longer than anyone since the economic development portfolio was created 41 years ago. As Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, Mr. Doctoroff oversees more than 40 City agencies, offices and corporations, including the Departments of Buildings, Transportation, Environmental Protection, Information Technology and Telecommunications, City Planning, Finance, Small Business Services, Housing Preservation and Development, the Economic Development Corporation, and the Mayor’s offices of Operations and Long-term Planning and Sustainability. Deputy Mayor Doctoroff is responsible for 289 separate projects and initiatives, including the Mayor’s PlaNYC agenda, which has made New York a global leader in sustainability. He has also served as the Administration’s point person on the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan after the devastation of 9/11.
“As the chief architect of our five-borough economic development plan, Dan Doctoroff has done more to change the face of this City than anyone since Robert Moses,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “As a result of Dan’s efforts, we’ve allowed for the creation of 130 million square feet of commercial and residential space, three new sports arenas, a new subway line, 2,400 acres of parks, the regeneration of more than 60 miles of waterfront, all while displacing only 400 residents. The initiatives Dan has spearheaded and the strong leadership he provided daily to the City’s business and financial communities were essential to the strong and unexpectedly fast economic recovery we made after the destruction of 9/11. His efforts were instrumental in helping us create more than a hundred thousand jobs and a climate where businesses wanted to locate and people wanted to work. His impact will be felt for decades to come.”
Fostering cooperation across agencies and working to advance the Mayor’s comprehensive economic development agenda, Deputy Mayor Doctoroff and the City Planning Commission under Amanda Burden, have fundamentally changed the way that the City approaches the land-use process, by using zoning laws to foster new development, create mixed use communities, improve the quality of life and to enhance tax revenues. As a result, under the Deputy Mayor’s leadership, the City has successfully undertaken 78 re-zonings across all five boroughs, covering more than 6,000 thousand city blocks, the most fundamental and geographically significant changes since the 1960s. These re-zonings will allow New York to meet the demand for the housing, office and commercial space that the City’s population needs as it continues to grow. The re-zonings will also create thousands of acres of new parkland, and will preserve the integrity of communities facing overdevelopment.
Undertaking the most comprehensive and ambitious municipal affordable housing construction program in the nation’s history, Deputy Mayor Doctoroff has overseen a commitment by the Mayor, through the Housing Preservation and Development Corporation (HPD ) and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) to build 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2013. 65,000 of the units envisioned under the Mayor’s New Housing Marketplace Plan are currently completed, under construction or funded. By finding and making land accessible for new affordable housing development through re-zonings, creating incentives for private developers to build affordable housing, and working to preserve, maintain and improve existing affordable housing units, this $7.5 billion plan will provide affordable housing for more than 500,000 New Yorkers.
Deputy Mayor Doctoroff and his teams in the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and the Mayor’s Office of Operations have created PlaNYC, which is the Bloomberg Administration’s blueprint for creating a more sustainable City and for meeting the challenges we face as the City’s population grows by nearly one million people over the next two decades. The cornerstone of the plan is a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in City buildings and operations by 30% over the next decade and citywide between now and 2030. The 127 separate initiatives laid out in PlaNYC comprehensively look at the energy, water, infrastructure, land, housing, open space, and transportation needs of the City moving forward. PlaNYC initiatives include plans to: convert the taxi fleet to hybrid; plant one million trees on streets and parks in all five boroughs; complete eight regional destination parks; convert underutilized schoolyards to playgrounds; clean and reuse brownfields for economic development; continue re-zonings to create affordable housing, and to reduce traffic congestion and substantially expand mass transit services through a broad range of initiatives, including congestion pricing.
Other major projects and initiatives spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Doctoroff include:
- Conceiving an entirely new Far West Side, including the massive 2005 Hudson Yards rezoning to provide for the City’s future growth, allowing for 25 million square feet of new commercial space and 14,000 units of housing, all surrounding a dramatic new Hudson Boulevard, resulting in enormous value creation, tax revenues and early development. Deputy Mayor Doctoroff first termed the area “Hudson Yards” as part of the 2012 Olympic Bid in 1999;
- Creative financing of the #7 subway line extension, the first line extension in 30 years and the first to be funded by the City in decades;
- Initiating the West Side Rail Yards RFP process, now underway, to develop an extraordinary 26-acre site over the LIRR yards, the largest vacant site in Manhattan;
- Preserving the High Line, with a $100 million commitment of City funds, and the associated rezoning of West Chelsea, to create an exciting new district that is generating not just development activity but creative energy in the arts and commerce;
- Re-zoning the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront, which has already unleashed tremendous construction and activity, and the creation of a great new waterfront park;
- Re-zoning downtown Brooklyn, which now has 10,000 residential units under construction, reversing a 40-year decline;
- Negotiating incentives for the construction of modern baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets;
- Renegotiating the lease with the Port Authority for the land under the airports, generating billions of additional revenues for the city;
- Awarding the long-delayed contract for street furniture, now visible on streets across the City, resulting in more than $1 billion in revenues for the City;
- Overseeing the creation of office of Small Business Services and the implementation of 14 new Business Improvement Districts throughout the five boroughs to spur jobs and support small business;
- Developing the extraordinarily successful Lower Manhattan Vision, shortly after 9/11, to use investments and incentives to convert the declining downtown into a vibrant 24/7 community with housing, retail and parks;
- Designing an innovative new agency to promote and market the City around the world for tourism and events, producing record levels of tourists, and
- Rezoning Jamaica Center to be a modern commercial hub, benefiting from it’s airport proximity.
Mayor Bloomberg has asked Nat Leventhal, Chairman of the Committee on Appointments, to begin speaking with a small group of possible candidates who would be capable of stepping in and leading the City’s economic development agenda over the next 2 years.
“For the past six years I have sat eight feet away from Dan and have seen the countless daily demonstrations of his extraordinary vision, creativity, energy and his ability to attract and motivate talented staff, and achieve goals that no one thought possible,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “I have asked Dan to continue to oversee some of the City’s most critical projects during a transition period in 2008, and I’m delighted that Dan will bring his exceptional leadership qualities to Bloomberg L.P.. At $1 per year, for six years, the $6 we have paid Dan makes his service to New York perhaps one of the greatest bargains for the City since the purchase of Manhattan for $24.”
