A ground-breaking (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City has an acute housing shortage, with emergency-level lows in apartment vacancies, especially for units affordable to most New Yorkers, and astronomical rents, a homelessness crisis, and halting recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the core of the city’s housing supply deficit is a lengthy and cumbersome land use decision-making process, a bureaucratic maze of local and state regulations combined with political dynamics that have often

Where an Amazon HQ was to be (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

What's The [Data] Point? Episode 100 -- $4 billion, The Development Discussion [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

As we continue our series on land use, housing, and development in New York City, we were joined by Michelle de la Uz of Fifth Avenue Committee and the City Planning

Mayor de Blasio unveils his housing plan (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Michelle de la Uz was first appointed to the powerful City Planning Commission in 2012, by then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, then re-appointed in 2017 by the current Public Advocate, Letitia James. Over the course of time, and with de Blasio now in his fifth year as mayor, de la Uz has become the most consistent and often lone dissenter on the 13-member commission, voting against a variety of de Blasio’s land use plans.

During a recent appearance on the ...

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits

March 19, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Michelle de la Uz

Michelle de la Uz is a commissioner on the City Planning Commission, where she was originally appointed by then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and Executive Director of Fifth Avenue Committee, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that manages