The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) and Regional Plan Association (RPA) have teamed together to create Technical Advancement and Support of Comprehensive Planning and CEQR Reform (TASC). TASC is an innovative new comprehensive and community planning mapping tool that uses open data to assist elected officials, planning practitioners, and most importantly communities on a wide range of land use actions that affect future development. In the absence of meaningful community-based or comprehensive planning, TASC allows for data-driven community involvement in the planning process and democratizes the availability, accessibility, and usability of public spatial data and advanced planning tools.

As a comprehensive mapping tool, TASC incorporates an extensive array of planning and social vulnerability factors based on regulatory, real estate, neighborhood conditions and socioeconomic conditions at the city tax lot level, that can be used by communities to better anticipate future development in their neighborhoods. As a community planning tool, TASC provides a forum for engaging in community-based groups for planning educational purposes and to glean input to meet the specific needs of New York neighborhoods.

TASC comes at an opportune time. In addition to aligning with the City Council’s burgeoning comprehensive planning efforts, ongoing public land use review (ULURP) and CEQR reform, and a renewed focus on community-based planning, TASC provides a flexible and adaptable vehicle to address development in post COVID-19 New York. Specifically, TASC prioritizes public health factors and social justice issues as they relate to equitable future development, residential and business displacement, and housing affordability; areas that current CEQR methodologies do not adequately address.

Our session will be presented by MAS’s Director of Advocacy, Spencer Williams. The presentation will show how TASC can be used by communities to create and test out various development scenarios. It will also show how TASC would improve the reliability of CEQR in forecasting future development and creating a more accurate analytical framework for evaluating impacts of major land use decisions on city neighborhoods. TASC will also help inform reliable and transparent mitigation measures. Mr. Williams will also discuss the next steps for TASC as it transitions from a mapping tool to a more refined predictive model.