Monthly Forum: Urban Planning Strategies that Work

The NYC metro area is constantly implementing urban planning projects that impact our millions of residents. These urban planning decisions, like congestion pricing, improve quality of life in the built environment. However, sometimes, an unexpected natural disaster like Superstorm Sandy is a mandate from the environment for us to rethink and reinvent our urban planning strategies.

This forum is designed to cover both ends of the spectrum. Our speakers will talk about recent transportation policy, such as congestion pricing, and theoretical ones, like free MTA bus fares. We’ll also discuss community planning and the Hunters Point North Community Resiliency Plan, as well as the Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines and the cohort of city agency projects affected by them. 

Date: May 21st, 2025

Time: 6:30PM (doors open at 6:15PM!)

Location: Hafele Showroom, 20 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10010

Doors open at 6:15 and refreshments will be served.

Speakers include:

Charles Komanoff, the “re-founder” of the bicycling-advocacy organization Transportation Alternatives and a spearhead of the anti-traffic-violence guerrilla group Right Of Way, was a mainstay of the campaign to bring congestion pricing to New York. State officials relied on his “Balanced Transportation Analyzer” Excel spreadsheet to frame the legislation authorizing congestion pricing that was enacted into law in 2019. His work includes books (Power Plant Cost Escalation, Killed By Automobile, The Bicycle Blueprint), scholarly articles and journalism. An honors graduate of Harvard and married parent of two grown sons, Charles lives in lower Manhattan. Web site: www.komanoff.net.

Andrew Buck -  AICP, ENV-SP

Senior Urban Planner & Technologist (VHB)

Andrew has over 10 years of experience working in the field of planning, analytics, and design. His practice focuses on leveraging the convergence of technology and planning towards tackling complex problems such as accelerating impact of climate change on communities and infrastructure, building more sustainable approaches towards development, and helping clients adapt and thrive in the face of uncertainty through making better decisions based on better information. His career has seen him provide a wide variety of planning and technological services to numerous private and public sector clients both domestically and internationally.

Helen Chananie

Senior Policy Advisor, Resilience and Strategic Planning at NYC Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice

Helen Chananie is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ), where she works on adaptation and capital planning. Helen oversees the Local Law 41 Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines program, working with over 20 City capital agencies to apply forward-looking climate science to the design of public buildings, community institutions, and infrastructure like roads, parks, and plazas, ensuring that they are ready to meet increasing threats from extreme heat, stormwater flooding, and coastal flooding.  

Prior to joining MOCEJ, Helen worked at the Building Energy Exchange, where she helped develop educational resources and reports to support the building design, construction, and real estate industries adopt best practices for building electrification and decarbonization.

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