Since 1937, CHPC, through its impartial research and nonpartisan advocacy, has shaped and influenced public policy to improve the City’s housing stock and the quality of life in New York City’s neighborhoods. Its board includes practitioners and experts in the fields of urban planning, architecture, zoning and land use law, housing finance and development, and community development. They provide a practical perspective that enhances CHPC’s high quality quantitative research and insight on issues affecting the City’s future.
CHPC was founded by a coalition of intellectuals and activists who worked closely with Senator Robert Wagner in crafting the National Housing Act of 1937. Its advocacy helped to encourage New York City to maintain economically integrated public housing, with access to services and transportation, and during the 1940s and 1950s, it supported litigation and legislation opposing racial discrimination in housing. CHPC also stressed the need for preserving and renovating low-rent private housing long before that concept became conventional wisdom.
CHPC’s research helped to shape the City’s policies regarding the large inventory of tax-foreclosed housing that was abandoned and left to decline in the 1970′s and 1980′s. In the 1990′s when the City sought to rethink its policies regarding tax foreclosure and privatization, it turned to CHPC for analysis and advice, which led to the successful preservation of this critical housing resource. Moving into the 21st Century, CHPC has focused its research and advocacy on issues related to the transformation of the old industrial landscape into mixed-use areas, the use of government condemnation, zoning policies, parking policies, gentrification, tax policies to encourage housing construction and affordability and the importance and impact of a regional housing strategy.
Presidents and Chairpersons 1937-2008
Harold S.Buttenheim
Loula D. Lasker
Norman Williams, Jr.
William Charney Vladeck
J.Clarence Davies, Jr.
James H. Scheuer
William F.R. Ballard
Charles S. Ascher
Frederick G. Frost
Richard Ravitch
Duncan Elder
Austin A. Laber
Albert A. Walsh
William D. Wilson
Lee Goodwin
Frances W. Magee
Robert W. Seavey
David A. Gardner
James Lipscomb
Marvin Markus
Mark Ginsberg
Executive Directors 1937-2008
Mrs Florence D. Stewart
Mrs David Dunlop
Mary Sklar
Shirely Adelson Siegal
James L. Kunen
Ira S. Robbins
Roger Starr
Allan R. Tlabot
Arthur Zabarkes
Julia Vitullo-Martin
Willa Appel
Joe Rose
Frank Braconi
Jerilyn Perine
Marian Sameth – Associate Director for six decades
