City Council’s land use director to depart

Gail Benjamin ending 24-year tenure this summer

From left: Benjamin oversaw NYU's planned expansion and negotiations on the Domino sugar factory conversion
From left: Benjamin oversaw NYU's planned expansion and negotiations on the Domino sugar factory conversion

Gail Benjamin, the City Council’s longtime land use director, will step down in July.

Benjamin, who oversaw New York University’s expansion in 2012, the Hudson Yards rezoning on the the West Side of Manhattan and the Domino sugar factory negotiations, has been in the post since 1990. A change to the city charter that year shifted the council’s role with regard to Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, giving the post considerably more power at the time she came on board, as Capital New York reported.

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Before joining City Council, Benjamin represented city comptroller Jay Goldin on the now defunct Board of Estimate, and worked as a special assistant to the president of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation and as a director within the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. [Capital New York]Julie Strickland