1. Empowering Manhattan’s Communities
A Vision For Community-Based Planning
jessicalappinmanhattan borough president

2. INTRODUCTION
The borough president’s role is to serve as an advocate and guardian for Manhattan’s 1.6 million
residents. Manhattan has seen tremendous changes in recent years. The next borough president
should ensure that future development is done in a way that protects the special character of each
and every community, and that city services and programs continue meeting the needs of
residents.
The Manhattan borough president’s office plays a significant role on land use issues, community
board appointments, service delivery, and the city budget process. As borough president, Jessica
Lappin would work to ensure that Manhattan residents have a meaningful and proactive say in
shaping their neighborhoods. This policy paper outlines what she would do as borough president
to empower communities, including:
• Working with every Manhattan community board to create and regularly update comprehensive
197-a plans to guide the growth and development of their neighborhoods.
• Assisting with community outreach efforts to ensure that a variety of local stakeholders are part
of the planning process.
• Developing a Community Board College program to provide members with in-depth training on
topics including city planning and land use.
• Working with city agencies and community boards to meet the goals included in 197-a plans and
annual statements of district needs.
• Creating a CommunityStat software program to identify and track problems with city services,
and advise agencies on where to direct resources.
• Implementing a transparent and inclusive system for allocating the borough president’s
discretionary funding, which incorporates independent screening panels and participatory
budgeting.

3. STRENGTHENING TOOLS FOR COMMUNITY-BASED PLANNING
Helping Every Community Board Develop & Regularly Update 197-a Plans
The city charter allows community boards, borough boards, and elected officials including
borough presidents, to develop 197-a plans for the growth, improvement, and development of
communities. These plans allow residents to proactively assess their needs and plan in advance
of a major development or rezoning proposal. Once approved by the City Planning Commission
and the City Council, 197-a plans are supposed to guide future actions of city agencies.
Some community boards have successfully used 197-a plans to meet goals for their
neighborhoods. For example, Manhattan Community Board 8 envisioned converting a former
heliport site into a waterfront park and esplanade. Lappin secured funding and worked closely
with the city and the board to bring this vision to fruition. Today the first phase of Andrew
Haswell Green Park is complete, and the remainder of the park is being built.
While these documents are useful planning tools, only two of Manhattan’s 12 community boards
have completed comprehensive 197-a plans. Three additional Manhattan boards have completed
partial plans quite some time ago, as the chart below illustrates.
Plan Sponsor Focus Status
The Chelsea Plan Manhattan CB 4 Zoning Adopted 5/96
Stuyvesant Cove Plan Manhattan CB 6 Waterfront Adopted 3/97
CB8 197-a Plan for
Queensboro Bridge Area
Manhattan CB 8 Waterfront/Streetscapes Adopted 8/06
CB 9 197-a Plan: Hamilton
Heights, Manhattanville,
Morningside Heights
Manhattan CB 9 Comprehensive Adopted
12/07
CB 6 197-a Plan for Eastern
Section of Community
District 6
Manhattan CB 6
& East Side
Rezoning
Alliance
Comprehensive with
focus on waterfront and
open space
Adopted 3/08
As Manhattan borough president, Lappin would work to help every community board
develop and regularly update comprehensive 197-a plans. She would encourage every
community board to form a standing 197-a committee to oversee the process from inception to
implementation.
Before 197-a plans are drafted, community boards should solicit extensive public input on what
local stakeholders need and want in their neighborhoods. The SPURA Matters initiative offers an
excellent model for gathering community feedback. In an effort to spark a conversation on
redeveloping the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA) in Lower Manhattan, community
groups, including Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) and the Pratt Institute did extensive
outreach to assess what residents wanted to see at the site.

4. These groups held workshops where residents participated in roundtable discussions about their
priorities. They also distributed questionnaires through a variety of methods including door
knocking, canvassing public spaces and posting them online.1
As borough president, Lappin
would assist community boards with outreach to ensure that a wide range of local
stakeholders are part of the planning process.
Once there is consensus on what should be included in 197-a plans, community boards need
technical support to draft them. Current Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer created the
Urban Fellowship Program, which partners urban planning graduate students with community
boards. Lappin would continue this program, and also ensure that boards have access to
professionals, including engineers and architects, to complete 197-a plans.
Community board members should also receive training on planning issues so they can play an
active role in developing 197-a plans. Lappin would create a Community Board College
program to provide members with in-depth classes on topics related to their charter-
mandated powers and responsibilities, including neighborhood planning. The program
would include extensive coursework on land use and zoning issues from experts in both the
public and private sectors. This training would allow residents to proactively work with the
Department of City Planning in shaping their neighborhoods.
Once a 197-a is drafted and adopted, there should be an ongoing effort to put the plan into effect.
As borough president, Lappin would work closely with community boards and city
agencies to ensure that the goals outlined in 197-a plans are being fulfilled. She would also
call for all relevant city agencies to formally review and respond to 197-a plans, and provide
written justification if there is any deviation from them.
In addition, boards should regularly update these plans to reflect changes in community districts.
They should be living documents that account for fluctuations in population, demographics and
other conditions. As borough president, Lappin would work with boards to revise
community plans on a continuous basis. This would include technical assistance through her
office’s planning department and the Urban Planning Fellowship program.
In addition, Lappin would facilitate borough-wide surveys and indexes to provide updated
information on community district needs. For example, in the City Council she secured funding
for New Yorkers for Parks to conduct an Open Space Index cataloguing every block of parkland
and open space in her district. 2
This project will help local community boards access current data
on open space and ascertain the areas of greatest need. As borough president, Lappin would
work to expand the Open Space Index throughout Manhattan, so that every board can
incorporate this information into its planning.
Strengthening the Role of Statements of District Needs
Each year, community boards must submit a statement of district needs outlining the current
conditions in their neighborhoods, and recommendations for local projects and services. While
city agencies are encouraged to review and consider these important community- planning
documents, departments are not required to incorporate them into their budgets.
1
http://prattcenter.net/sites/default/files/publications/SPURA_CommunityVoices_Sept17%2C09.pdf
2
Chaban, Matt. Crain’s. Green spaces in short supply on Upper East Side. 4/25/13.

5. Community boards are at the frontlines of our neighborhoods, and their assessments of district
needs should play a greater role in guiding agency planning. Lappin would encourage relevant
agencies to provide written responses to annual statements of district needs. Agencies
should outline a course of action for how certain priorities will be fulfilled, and justify why
others will not receive funding.
USING PUBLIC FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE SERVICES
Borough presidents have significant power related to the delivery of city services that impact the
quality of life in Manhattan. The city charter authorizes the borough president to “oversee the
coordination of a borough-wide public service complaint program and report to the mayor,
council president and public on recurring complaints of residents” and “issue recommendations
for improving the city's response to such complaints.”
Lappin would use constituent feedback to assess and make recommendations on improving
city services in Manhattan. She would work with community boards to create
CommunityStat, a database system modeled after the City Council’s CouncilStat software.
This tool would allow district managers to log, track, and map constituent complaints and
concerns. Using the CommunityStat system, community boards would issue monthly reports on
the type and number of concerns in their district.
Lappin’s office would examine these reports to identify borough-wide problems, and advise
agencies on where to target resources and make improvements. Borough presidents lead
monthly borough service cabinet meetings, which bring together city agencies, district managers
and city council representatives. She would use these meetings to address the top concerns that
emerge from CommunityStat reports. For example, if there are a number of complaints about
rodents and garbage near a construction site, district managers could discuss the problem with
representatives from the Department of Sanitation, Health and Buildings at the borough service
cabinet meetings and come up with a plan of action.
To keep residents and agencies updated on community concerns, Lappin would post
CommunityStat reports on the borough president’s website. She would also make her
recommendations for improving city services available online.
The city charter also allows borough presidents to “monitor and make recommendations
regarding the performance of contracts providing for the delivery of services in the borough,”
and when appropriate “require that a hearing be held in the borough by a contract performance
panel.” New York City has contracts with vendors for a variety of services including street
repairs, recycling, animal shelter operations, and afterschool and daycare programs. Lappin
would convene contract performance panels to address service issues in Manhattan.
REFORMING DISCRETIONARY FUNDING
Under the city charter, elected officials, including city council members and borough presidents,
have control over a portion of the city’s capital and expense budget. While discretionary funds
have supported many worthy programs and projects, some officials have abused the system.
There should be a strong process in place to ensure fairness and transparency, and to give
residents a voice on how their tax dollars are spent.

6. In the city council, Lappin has used discretionary funding to support homeless services, food
pantries, legal clinics for tenants, afterschool programs, and other important services. After
taking office, she created a standard application process for groups seeking funding. In addition,
her office does not provide funding to conduit groups, which administer funds and perform
administrative tasks for non-profits, but do not actually run programs or services.
Borough President Stringer has taken important steps in reforming the way the borough
president’s office allocates expense funding. He created the Manhattan Community Grant
program, which awards money to groups based on the recommendations of an independent panel
of community-based experts, city council representatives and borough board members.
Grants are available to groups through five city agencies: Aging, Education, Corrections, Health
and Mental Hygiene, and Parks and Recreation. There is a panel for each of these agencies,
consisting of the chair of the relevant city council committee, one borough board member, and
three members from non-profit organizations. As Chair of the City Council Aging Committee,
Lappin has actively participated on Stringer’s community grant panels.
Lappin would create a system of allocating the borough president’s discretionary funding
that includes both independent panels and participatory budgeting.
For expense funding, which pays for programs and services, she would implement a
modified version of Stringer’s initiative. First, the borough president’s office, the city’s Office
of Management and Budget, and relevant contracting agencies would pre-screen applicants to
ensure they meet guidelines for funding eligibility.
Next, independent panels would assess the applications. City council representatives would be
taken off the panels to depoliticize the process. There would be six panel members, instead of
five, including one contracting agency representative, one non-profit representative, one grant
writer and three community board members. Grant writers would come from professional
charitable organizations such as the Ford, Rockefeller and New York foundations, as was
recently recommended by Daily News columnist Erroll Louis. Manhattan’s 12 community
boards would rotate membership on individual panels each year, to ensure that every board
served once on each panel over the course of a four-year term.
Lappin would use a participatory budgeting model to allocate the borough president’s
capital money. Beginning in 2011, some city council members began using participatory
budgeting to decide how a portion of their capital funding, for “brick and mortar” projects such
as new parks or school equipment, should be spent.
Participatory budgeting involves a series of community meetings to develop proposals for capital
projects. First, neighborhood assemblies are convened to identify community needs, brainstorm
ideas and select delegates. Next, delegates are trained on the budget process and form
committees, where they devise project proposals with the help of experts. Delegates then present
their proposals to the community and get feedback. Finally, residents vote on projects, and the
winners receive city funding.
Lappin would also continue her policy of not funding conduit groups, and would post on her
office’s website information on grant awardees, and how they will use the funding.

7. CONCLUSION
As Manhattan continues to change, the next borough president can help preserve the character of
our neighborhoods, and allow communities to play a proactive role in shaping their futures.
Lappin would work to empower Manhattan residents with planning tools, services and programs
to protect and enhance the quality of life in their communities.