Project Abstract

New York City’s current planning process is a jumble of information on the websites of various community boards in different boroughs. There is no unified source of truth that various stakeholders like developers, city planners or concerned citizens can access this information through. Through this project we’d like to create a unified dynamic map for New York City highlighting city planning projects in flight along with citizen comments and concerns on them.

Project Description & Overview

The purpose of this project is to take the otherwise opaque city planning process during the public review phase and make it transparent and easily accessible to all. Through this project, we aim to build a publicly available, dynamic map that will showcase various planning projects in flight throughout New York City, as well as citizens’ concerns and comments on said projects. This will help to democratize the process of urban development and will be of use to various stakeholders like developers, city planners, citizens, and elected representatives. The current information on various planning projects is available via the websites of various community boards throughout New York and requires hours of searching to find relevant information. Through this process, citizens could access city planning information in other community boards and see how projects were greenlighted or citizen participation brought them to a halt. Developers could also look at our map and decide on how to alter their projects by searching for similar projects that might have faced obstacles and how to rectify them in their proposal.

Datasets

1. ZAP
2. Different Websites of NYC Community Boards Example: a project under review inside of the Land-use page at MN CB5’s website
3. TBD

Competencies

Project management, data visualization, data engineering, modeling

Learning Outcomes & Deliverables

1. A unified, analyzable dataset of ongoing planning projects across NYC.
2. A publicly available map listing out planning projects under review New York City (deliverable that can also be used in personal portfolios).
3. Better understanding of New York City’s complex city planning process.

Students

Ying Lei, Hanfie Vandanu, Shi Hui Zenn Wong, Yu Wu