Community

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos, a Manhattan Democrat, will introduce a bill Tuesday to provide a professional urban planner to each of the 59 community boards in the city.

The bill, Kallos said, is a move to empower communities in the city's land use process. Speaking exclusively to Gotham Gazette, Kallos said, "The City has two main powers. The first is over budget and the community boards have a say in that. They make their budget priorities known. The other is land use. In order to give community boards power and a voice in that land use process, they need skilled technical help."

City Council member Ben Kallos plans to introduce a bill today requiring that a city planner attend every meeting held by the city’s 59 community boards.

Kallos said the bill intends to give communities a more active role in the land use review process, the Gotham Gazette reported. The bill would form a planning department in the five borough president offices. There would be at least one professional urban planner on staff for each community board.

More than 100 Upper East Siders turned out to celebrate this year’s OTTY Award winners in a ceremony at Mt. Sinai Hospital on March 16.

For more than a decade, Our Town has honored people in the community who have made the East Side a better place to work and live.

This year, 14 people were honored, at an awards ceremony emceed by NY1’s Roma Torre. In addition to the honorees and their families, the event was attended by local elected officials, including Comptroller Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and Councilmembers Ben Kallos and Dan Garodnick.