Leadership

Chuck Lesnick,  Vice President

Chuck is the former Deputy Counsel & Assistant Commissioner for the New York State Homes & Community Renewal. The former Yonkers City Council President Lesnick championed adaptive re-use of historic buildings, smart growth & transit-oriented development, the restoration of funding for art, music & sports in the public schools, public safety and a robust Affordable Housing Ordinance. In a previous stint as Yonkers Director of Economic Development, he helped plant the seeds of the current waterfront downtown renaissance by obtaining funds to restore the historic Yonkers City Pier and led the efforts to obtain and restore Federal and state Economic Development Zone designations. At various points in his career Lesnick worked for the NYS Urban Development Corporation as the Director of Commercial Revitalization and for the US Dept. of Housing & Urban Development as both a Community Building and Economic Development Specialist for the NY/NJ Region. He also served as a Regional Representative to former Governor Mario Cuomo and also to Governor Andrew Cuomo for Westchester, Rockland & Putnam. Lesnick is a past President of the Westchester Municipal Officials Association and also served on the Westchester Collaborative Tax Assessment Commission.

Lesnick holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale College, Masters degrees in Policy Analysis and Urban & Regional Planning (MPA-URP) from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs and a JD from the NYU School of Law where he was the Colloquium Editor for the Review of Law and Social Change on the topic “Litigating and Legislating for Affordable Housing.”