FINANCING AN EQUITABLE & RESILIENT FUTURE
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PROGRAM
9:30 – 11:15
New York City Bar Association November 19, 2013
Innovative Finance Alternatives: High and Low Finance for Urban Resiliency
8:00 – 8:20
Moderator, Jesse M. Keenan, Research Director, Center for Urban Real Estate, Columbia University
Coffee + Registration
Charles Laven, Forsyth Street Advisors
8:20 – 8:30
James Parrott, Fiscal Policy Institute
Welcome + Statement of goals of the conference
Richard Roberts, Red Stone Equity Partners
Stephen Kass, Chair, City Bar Task Force on Climate Adaptation
8:30 – 9:30 A Framework for Social Inclusion, Resiliency Planning and Transparency Moderator, Ron Shiffman, Director, Pratt Institute’s “Recovery, Adaptation, Mitigation and Planning” [RAMP] Initiative Bettina Damiani, Good Jobs New York Maya Wiley, The Center for Social Inclusion Duzan Doepel, Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Urban Planning, Research, Design and Manufacturing Campus (RDM), Rotterdam, NL
Wallace Turbeville, DEMOS Fellow Marcel Ham, Rebel, NL BE International Chris Lotspeich, Celtic Energy
11:15 -12:30 Housing and Infrastructure: Resiliency and Equity Moderator, Michelle de la Uz, Fifth Avenue Committee Donald Manning, Jewish Association Serving the Aging Michael Whelan, Services for the UnderServed Bomee Jung, Deputy Director, New York Office Enterprise Community Partners Inc. Denise Scott, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
12:30 – 12:45 * This conference is co-sponsored by the New York City Bar Association’s Task Force on Climate Adaptation, Stephen L. Kass, Chair; Committee on International Environmental Law, Mary Lyndon, Chair; Committee on Environmental Law, Jeff Gracer, Chair; Committee on Energy, Clarke Bruno, Chair; Committee on NY City Affairs, Cathleen A. Clements, Chair; Committee on Housing and Urban Development, Erica F. Buckley, Chair; Committee on Social Welfare, Peter A. Kempner, Chair.
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Wrap Up and Next Steps Stephen Kass, Chair, City Bar Task Force on Climate Adaptation Rob Conboy, Better, Inc
RAMP [Recovery, Adaptation, Mitigation and Planning], a post-Sandy initiative of Pratt Institute Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development, is a suite of studios, classes and public programs that works closely with community partners to address issues of recovery, sustainability and resilience in the face of a changing climate. It is essential to develop the capacity and delivery system to assist diverse communities and businesses in their recovery from the impacts of Sandy and to strengthen their resilience to face future storms by enabling them to adapt to the inevitability of climate change. Equally important is the need to build their capacity to undertake the sustained mitigation actions necessary to reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases. The city and the country can no longer afford to engage in planning policies that are either predicated on risk denial or based on short term fixes — climate change and rising sea levels and their impact on the pattern of development in the city must be addressed by a sustained, holistic and synergistic approach to recovery and post-recovery efforts. Lessons from a diverse, dense island city like New York will be instructive for municipalities elsewhere.
The New York City Bar Association (City Bar),
founded in 1870, is a voluntary association of lawyers and law students. Since 1896, the organization, officially known as the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, has been headquarted in a landmark building on 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. Today the City Bar has over 24,000 members. Its current president, Cary R. Dunne, began his two-year term on May 15, 2012. BETTER, Inc. is public private partnership of Lang Consulting, Photonica, and International Green Energy Council. We act as a single global energy services provider (ESPo) to deliver radically more energy efficient buildings and as a training organization that provides skills and knowledge required for these projects. Pratt Institute Programs for Sustainable Planning & Development is an alliance of four programs with a shared value placed on urban sustainability defined by the “triple bottom line� of environment, equity and economy. Community Conversations on Environmental Justice and Rebuilding are an outgrowth of RAMP (Recovery, Adaptation, Mitigation and Planning). Recently created by PRATT, RAMP aims to develop community capacity while also developing the professionals, including architecture, sustainability and urban planning students and those continuing in these professions, to develop strategies and skills to support community-scale innovation. www.pratt.edu | www.prattpspd.com
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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. has introduced solutions through public-private partnerships with financial institutions, governments, community organizations and other partners that share our vision that one day, every person will have an affordable home in a vibrant community, filled with promise and the opportunity for a good life. Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is dedicated to helping community residents transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy and sustainable communities of choice and opportunity — good places to work, do business and raise children. LISC mobilizes corporate, government and philanthropic support to provide local community development organizations with: loans, grants and equity investments, local, statewide and national policy support and technical and management assistance. Center for Social Inclusion is a national policy strategy organization that works to identify and support policy strategies to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. CSI works with community groups and national organizations to develop policy ideas, foster effective leadership, and develop communications tools for an opportunity-rich world in which we all will thrive no matter our race or ethnicity. CSI’s vision is to translate America’s changing demographics into a new source of power and prosperity for a society where all people can participate in solutions that help us all thrive. www.thecsi.org
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The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA) is a citywide network founded in 1991 linking grassroots organizations from low-income communities of color in their struggle for environmental justice. NYC-EJA coalesces its member organizations around common issues to advocate for improved environmental conditions and against inequitable burdens by coordinating campaigns designed to affect systemic change through City and State policies. www.nyc-eja.org Fiscal Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization committed to improving public policies and private practices to better the economic and social conditions of all New Yorkers. Founded in 1991, FPI works to create a strong economy in which prosperity is broadly shared. Good Jobs New York advances the principle that in a civil society, taxpayers - regardless of wealth or access to public officials - have the right to know the costs and benefits of subsidy deals, to seek to improve these deals through agency procedures and advocacy with their elected representatives, and to expect that tax breaks really pay for workers, communities, and taxpayers. Urban Green Council is the New York Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Their mission is to advance the sustainabiity of urban buildings through education advocacy and research.
SPEAKERS Stephen Kass, Carter Ledyard & Milburn Steve is a partner at the law firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn and Co-Director of its Environmental Practice group. He has practiced environmental law since 1972, written on urban environmental and development issues in the U. S. and abroad and reported on human rights in developing countries for Human Rights Watch and the New York City Bar Association. He is an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and NYU’s Center on Global Affairs, past Vice-President of the Bar Association and former chair of its committees on International Environmental Law; International Human Rights; Social Welfare Law; and
Bettina Damiani, Project Director of Good Jobs New York Bettina joined Good Jobs New York with experience in community organizing, progressive public relations and political fundraising. Through her work with GJNY, Bettina was a founder of the Liberty Bond Housing Coalition, which advocates for the use of post-September 11th financing to create affordable housing for moderate and low-income New Yorkers. She has a B.A. in Communications and Peace Studies from Manhattan College and a Masters of Urban Affairs from Hunter College.
Downtown Redevelopment following September 11, 2001.
Maya Wiley, Founder & President, Center for Social Inclusion
Ron Shiffman, FAICP, NYS Hon. AIA, Pratt Institute
Maya Wiley is the Founder and President of the
Ron Shiffman is a city planner with over 50 years of experience providing program and organizational development assistance to community-based groups in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Trained as an architect and urban planner, he is an expert in community-based development. He is a tenured professor at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture where he chaired the Department of City and Regional Planning from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the New York City Planning Commission from 1990-1996. He has taught and developed courses on urban and community planning, advocacy and architecture, participatory planning, sustainable development and the history and philosophy of community development. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy he, working with Pratt students
Center for Social Inclusion, a national policy strategy organization that works to transform structural barriers to opportunity for communities of color, and ensure that we all share in the benefits and burdens of public policy. CSI conducts applied research, policy development, communications testing and strategy support to solve inequity and exclusion. A civil rights attorney and public advocate since 1989, Ms. Wiley has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of NY and the Open Space Foundation.
Duzan Doepel, Professor of Sustainable Architecture & Urban Planning, Research, Design and Manufacturing Campus (RDM), Rotterdam, NL
and his colleague architect Deborah Gans, organized and
Doepel immigrated to the Netherlands in 1996 to work as
developed the Pratt Programs for Sustainable Planning
a project architect for MVRDV. For a period of six years, he
and Development’s RAMP –Recovery, Adaptation,
worked on a wide range of realized buildings. A long-term
Mitigation and Planning initiative.
interest in sustainability led him to the Dutch Institute for Spatial Research in 2002. Doepel regularly gives lectures and workshops, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Currently he is a consultant for Dutch Architecture Fund, member of the steering committee for the friends of Dutch Architecture Institute and Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Urban Planning at the Knowledge Sustainable Solutions, RDM Campus.
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Jesse M. Keenan, Research Director, Center for Urban Real Estate
York’s economic policy office under Mayor David N. Dinkins and Executive Assistant to the President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (now
Jesse M. Keenan is the Research Director for the Center for
UNITE). He received his B.A. in American Studies from
Urban Real Estate (CURE) and Adjunct Professor of Real
Illinois Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. in Economics
Estate Development. Keenan has previously advised on
from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
matters concerning real estate and housing for agencies of the U.S. Government, Fortune 500 Companies, not-for-profit community enterprises and international development NGOs. Keenan has previously held various teaching, research and visiting appointments at the University of Miami School of Law, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Joint Center for Housing Studies, the University of Amsterdam and The Bauhaus Academy in Dessau, Germany. Keenan previously served as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Regional Disaster Sheltering and Housing Recovery Planning Team and is currently a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s NYC Taskforce for Building Resiliency. Keenan currently leads CURE’s joint project with various agencies of the Netherlands for advancing climate adaptive development research. Keenan attended the University of Georgia (A.B.), Georgia State University (J.D.), Columbia University (M.Sc.) and the University of Miami (LL.M.).
Charles Laven, Forsyth Street Advisors
Richard Roberts, Director, Business Development, Red Stone Equity Partners LLC Richard Roberts is Director of Business Development for Red Stone Equity Partners, LLC assisting in the origination and management of developer relationships in the Northeast and the development of new business strategies for the firm. Richard has had an extensive career in affordable housing and urban market investments having worked in these areas for over 18 years. Prior to joining Red Stone, he worked in the government, for profit and nonprofit sectors, including serving as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, one of the largest allocators of Low Income Housing Tax Credits in the country, where he was responsible for the investment of more than $1 billion in New York City’s neighborhoods and the creation of over 30,000 units of affordable housing. He was also the founding Managing Director of the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group where he devised and led
Charles Laven has over 40 years of experience providing
a creative strategy responsible for the establishment of the
advisory and technical consulting services to housing
firm’s community development investment platform.
finance agencies, mortgage and investment banking firms, developers, and not-for-profit organizations. Prior to founding Forsyth Street Advisors, he spent 12 years as a partner at Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Altschuler, Inc. (HR&A), a New York-based consulting firm. Before joining HR&A, he was a principal with the firm of Caine Gressel Midgley Slater, where he assisted in financings involving the securitization of real estate debt in excess of $3 billion and provided real estate advisory services to banks, government and foundations.
James Parrott, Deputy Director and Chief Economist, Fiscal Policy Institute
Wallace C. Turbeville, Senior Fellow, DEMOS Demos is a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. Wallace Turbeville practiced law for seven years before joining Goldman, Sachs & Co. in 1985 as an investment banker. In his twelve years at Goldman, he specialized in infrastructure finance and public/private partnerships. From 1990 through 1996, he was posted to the London office where he was co-head of a group tasked to pursue financing of transportation, energy and environmental projects, particularly in the newly opened eastern European
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Prior to joining FPI in January 1999, James Parrott was
nations. While in London, Mr. Turbeville served on the
Chief Economist and Director of the Bureau of Fiscal
consultative Committee for Public/Private Partnership
and Economic Analysis for the Office of the State
Finance of Transportation Infrastructure of HM Treasury.
Deputy Comptroller for New York City (OSDC). Parrott
In October 2010, Mr. Turbeville joined Better Markets, Inc.
has also served as Chief Economist for the City of New
He was the primary author of dozens of comment letters
relating to proposed rules and studies implementing
million, and a housing development pipeline of nearly
the Dodd-Frank Act of the Commodity Futures Trading
1000 units representing total development costs of more
Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission,
$400 million. Michelle is a member of the New York City
Financial Stability Oversight Counsel and the Federal
Planning Commission, appointed to the Commission by
prudential banking regulators. He is a proponent of a
the Public Advocate, now Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.
“Robin Hood Tax.”
Marcel Ham, Co-founder & Co-owner, The Rebel Group, NL BE International
Donald Manning, Director of Housing, Jewish Association Serving the Aging [JASA] Donald Manning is the Director of Housing
Marcel Ham has over a decade of experience in financial
Management at JASA, where he oversees the
economic advisor, mainly in the field of financial and
management of 1,916 apartments for the elderly and
economic feasibility, structuring innovative contracting
disabled in three NYC boroughs. While at JASA, Mr.
and tender strategies, P3 [public private partnerships]
Manning successfully completed the construction
and project finance. As an advisor to governments he
of 53 HUD 202 Section 8 apartments in the Lower
was involved in the establishment of several P3 units, P3
East Side, directing the refinancing of more than $30
policy development and capacity building. Moreover,
million in mortgages to rehabilitate and improve the
he has been lead financial advisor in a range of road
overall facilities, home to more than 700 families, and
infrastructure, light rail and social infrastructure projects.
supervising the completion of major capital repairs.
He is the co founder and co owner of Rebel and currently
He is looking to further transform JASA housing by
leads the USA branch.
exploring new, green energy technology, resources and
Chris Lotspeich, Director of Sustainability Services, Celtic Energy Chris Lotspeich has over 20 years of sustainability, energy efficiency, project development and training experience. His professional interests and experience include environmentally-preferable business practices; green building; sustainable development; climate change; international security, including environmental aspects; and energy issues such as renewable power, distributed generation, and energy efficiency.
Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director, Fifth Avenue Committee Michelle de la Uz has over twenty years experience in public and community service and became Executive Director of Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC) in January 2004, after serving as Co-Chair of FAC’s Board of Directors. Michelle oversees the organization’s mission of advancing economic and social justice and comprehensive programs serving more than 5,000 low and moderate income people directly through the Fifth Avenue Committee and its non-housing affiliates, which have combined budgets of more than $10 million, real estate assets of over $100
opportunities. Prior to his work at JASA, Mr. Manning was the Deputy Director of Housing for Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council in Brooklyn. While at Ridgewood Bushwick, he supervised the development, management and governmental compliance staff for more than 1,000 housing units, and successfully applied for state grants, tax-credit financing and private funds used for the development of more than 400 low-income affordable housing units – HUD 202, Tax Credit, NRP and market rate apartments. Through his extensive work in housing, Mr. Manning has assembled and monitored project teams consisting of architects, attorneys, housing consultant and contractors.
Michael Whelan, Chief Financial Officer, Services for the UnderServed [SUS] Michael Whelan, ACA, joined SUS in July 2009 as Chief Financial Officer. In this capacity Mr. Whelan manages the Finance, Facilities, Purchasing and Information Technology functions of SUS. At SUS Mr. Whelan aims to improve business processes and leverage technology to drive continuous improvement. Prior to joining SUS, he was CFO of AC Nielsen, which is one of the world’s largest market research companies with revenues of over $2 billion. At Nielsen he led cost reduction
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initiatives in response to increased competitive intensity. Earlier in his career, Mr. Whelan gained his public accounting qualification in the UK, where Peat Marwick, now KPMG, employed him. He then joined the pharmaceutical industry starting in internal audits and progressing to CFO of a global consumer medicine business. At BIC, a producer of consumer products including pens and shavers, he served in various finance and general management roles. He is a Chartered Accountant and also an international member of the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Whelan is energized to bring the experience he garnered in the corporate world to the not-for-profit sector.
Bomee Jung, Deputy Director, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. Bomee Jung manages the design, delivery and assessment of Enterprise’s initiatives to improve the energy and environmental performance of affordable housing in New York. These initiatives include expanding the availability of financial and technical resources, promoting a policy and regulatory environment that encourages green building, and strengthening the capacity for sustainable construction, management and operation in the affordable housing community. Before joining Enterprise in 2008, Bomee founded GreenHomeNYC, a nonprofit environmental education organization that promotes green building through volunteerism. She also spent several years developing data-driven, internet-based applications, and, as a result, has a particular interest in building energy metrics and data analysis. Bomee holds a Master of City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and Japanese from the University of Georgia.
Denise Scott, LISC, Managing Director Denise Scott has served as Managing Director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s New York City program (LISC NYC) since 2001. In this role, she manages a staff of 20, a $3 million operating budget and is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction of the New York City office, including the development of new initiatives, partnerships, and programs. Ms. Scott has primary responsibility for the investor constituency and the development efforts that result in the raising of over $100 million in equity yearly. She also plays a major role in government relations, taking the lead for NYC-based agencies and supporting LISC’s and the National Equity Fund’s national efforts as needed. During her tenure, LISC NYC has invested $5.6 million in grants, $116 million in loans and $600 million in equity investments, translating into the development of over 10,000 units of affordable housing. Prior to working at LISC NYC, Ms. Scott has held a variety of leadership positions. From 1998 to January 2001, she served as a White House appointee to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), responsible for the daily operations of HUD’s six New York/ New Jersey Region offices, and supervised the implementation of funding initiatives for an annual budget of over a billion dollars.
Rob Conboy, CEO, Better Inc. In 2004, Rob received the first MBA at the University of Vermont with an emphasis in sustainability. This degree solidified his commitment to the environment and the power of business innovation. He has over 20 years of sales and strategic planning experience, all of which have been with highly entrepreneurial companies. For the past six years, Rob has focused on renewable energy start-ups, bringing leading edge technologies to market at Draker Laboratories as Chief Operating Officer and at Thermal Storage Solutions as VP of Finance and Marketing. Rob has a deep understanding of how to expedite the acceptance of new technologies and building practices. As CEO of Better, Inc. he is driving business development, forging strategic alliances, and developing new products and services.
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NOTES
Special Thanks The sponsors wish to thank the Bar Association of New York for their generosity in hosting this session on “Financing an Equitable & Resilient Future.” We are also grateful to the presenters for donating their time and expertise and our co-sponsors for their assistance in preparing and organizing this effort. Our deepest appreciation to the Kresge Foundation for its generous support of the Center for Social Inclusion / Pratt PSPD’s RAMP initiative of which this conference is a part. 9
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