Welcome

The mission of the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment is to further economic, social, environmental justice and sustainability by helping communities shape decisions that affect their lives, through planning, design and research.

About Us

The Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, LLC (CCCE) is a women-owned and led planning, architecture, and urban design practice and interdisciplinary professional network based in New York City, with projects throughout the tri-state region. We work with clients and partners that share our mission of developing a sustainable and equitable world.

The Collective, a non-hierarchical professional organization, has 16 Members and 13 Affiliates. We are a certified NYC Minority/Women Business Enterprise (WBE).

 

Equity Planning: A call to Mayor Mamdani to strengthen NYC’s planning process and build equity for all New Yorkers

A CALL FOR COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING  – LINK TO FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

*****NEW***** CCCE’s OP-ED about Comprehensive Planning in City Limits

It is exciting that Mayor Mamdani has embraced the concept of comprehensive planning as a key policy platform.  CCCE firmly believes, however, that a comprehensive planning agenda must include both citywide and local perspectives.  These four principles must guide reform of the planning process:

  • Create a comprehensive planning framework, that spells out goals and specific objectives and benchmarks while balancing citywide and local needs
  • Provide communities with planning expertise
  • Ensure that community plans reflect diverse community interests
  • Ensure that there is a real commitment to implementing community-sponsored local plans

What we do

CCCE works on planning, architecture, and research projects that further economic resilience, cultural diversity, public health, social justice, and environmental sustainability.

We conduct research, interpret policy, analyze conditions and opportunities, and provide cutting-edge designs. We support and facilitate partnerships, design, and convene participatory processes, enabling effective civic engagement in complex government procedures and implementation of new visions, programs, and plans.

Our inclusive approach engages a broad spectrum of stakeholders including residents, community organizations, and businesses, and builds their capacity to shape decisions that impact daily life, the environment, and climate.

Services

  • Land-Use and Zoning Policy Development
  • Environmental, Health, Food System, and Preservation Planning
  • Neighborhood Planning and Community Development
  • Affordable Housing Policy
  • Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, Placemaking, and Public Art
  • Architecture, Interior Design and Space Planning
  • Financial and Real-Estate Feasibility Studies
  • Energy, Efficiency, and Resilience
  • Economic and Workforce Development

Initiatives

  • Caregiver Affordable Housing for a Resilient Economy (CAHRE) Infrastructure: A new affordable housing model for health care workers and their families; a pilot project is currently planned in the Bronx
  • Anti-Displacement Research (NYC and International) - CCCE multi-year research initiative
  • Land Use Policy and Budget Research Project (NYC) - CCCE research initiative
  • Parametric Urban Design and Real-Estate Analysis tool: WE_GENERATE (beta) - funded by the NYS Health Foundation and the Taconic Foundation/Pratt Center (with GOLES)
  • CCCE Workshops, Courses and Public Programs - by CCCE

Clients

  • Bronx Community Board 7
  • Chinatown Working Group (CWG)
  • CAAAV+GOLES+TUFF-LES+Manhattan Community Board 3
  • City of Stamford, CT, Land Use Bureau
  • East New York Coalition for Community Advancement
  • Good Old Lower East Side, Inc. (GOLES)
  • Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
  • New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC)
  • Prospect Park East Network (PPEN)/Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association (PLGNA)
  • Seward Park Conservancy
  • UPROSE and the Protect Our Working Waterfront Alliance
  • Village of Ossining
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • National Congress of Neighborhood Women
  • NYCHA Tenant Assoc's (Johnson, Clay Avenue, Cooper Park, Ravenswood)
  • New York Health Foundation

Projects

CCCE works with community groups, non-profit organizations, public agencies, and private firms on comprehensive planning, architectural design, stakeholder engagement, and community development efforts. We provide customized teams with the requisite skill set for specific projects and draw upon the deep expertise of the broader Collective for additional input. We are a certified WBE Enterprise.

Selected Projects

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Image Equity Planning: A call to Mayor Mamdani to strengthen NYC’s planning process and build equity for all New Yorkers

Equity Planning: A call to Mayor Mamdani to strengthen NYC’s planning process and build equity for all New Yorkers

Featured, Urban Planning, Advocacy Initiatives, Comprehensive Plan

It is exciting that Mayor Mamdani has embraced the concept of comprehensive planning as a key policy platform.  We firmly believe, that a comprehensive planning agenda must include both citywide and local perspectives.  As a group, as individuals, and in coalition with others, we have fought long and hard to ensure that New Yorkers have a voice in the future of their city and their neighborhoods, and that equity guides our decision-making processes. These four principles must guide reform of the planning process:

  • Create a comprehensive planning framework, that spells out goals and specific objectives and benchmarks while balancing citywide and local needs
  • Provide communities with planning expertise
  • Ensure that community plans reflect diverse community interests
  • Ensure that there is a real commitment to implementing community-sponsored local plans
Learn More
Image Stamford CT South End Neighborhood Plan

Stamford CT South End Neighborhood Plan

Featured, Urban Planning, Workshops, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Historic Preservation

The City of Stamford, CT Land Use Bureau retained the Collective to develop a comprehensive community-based plan for the South End neighborhood – a 322-acre waterfront peninsula. After a thorough community-engagement process, CCCE’s team created zoning, historic preservation, and urban design guidelines for affordable housing, office and retail development, as well as recommendations for new educational, cultural and landscape amenities.

Learn More
Image CAHRE: Caregiver Affordable Housing for a Resilient Economy

CAHRE: Caregiver Affordable Housing for a Resilient Economy

Featured, Advocacy Initiatives

CCCE POLICY PROPOSAL: The CAHRE “Caregiver Affordable Housing for a Resilient Economy” model is an innovative approach to building healthy, stable, and resilient communities and ageing in place in NYC.  It is about providing deeply affordable housing for low- and moderate-income healthcare workers in proximity to the senior and disabled people that they serve to enhance health care services provided at the local level as part of neighborhood social infrastructure. Based on the number of seniors and people with disabilities in a neighborhood, a percentage of affordable housing units should be allocated for direct care workers whether through new construction, adaptive reuse, or distribution in an existing residential building.

Click the links to see the new CAHRE video and white paper.

 

Learn More
Image Sunset Park BK Green Resilient Industrial District (G.R.I.D. Plan)

Sunset Park BK Green Resilient Industrial District (G.R.I.D. Plan)

Featured, Urban Planning, Sustainable Design, Workforce Development, Green Jobs

The Sunset Park industrial waterfront in Brooklyn is one of New York City’s largest industrial waterfronts with its only deep-water port. It is also home to the second-highest number of industrial jobs in New York City. Industry City is a 6.5 million square feet industrial campus on the waterfront.

In 2017, Industry City proposed a rezoning plan that would increase its footprint to add two hotels, academic uses, and larger retail and office spaces while preserving a token amount of industrial space. UPROSE engaged the Collective to analyze the Industry City rezoning proposal and to create an alternative plan that addresses UPROSE’s climate justice and economic development goals.

 

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Image GOLES Office Renovation, N.Y.

GOLES Office Renovation, N.Y.

Featured, Workshops, Sustainable Design, Architecture, Interior Design

GOLES – Good Old Lower East Side, Inc. – a 45-year-old Lower East Side housing and preservation organization, appointed the Collective to completely re-design their storefront offices and public meeting spaces. The new offices support GOLES’s work on tenant rights, homelessness prevention, economic development, community revitalization, and its advocacy for a sustainable and healthy environment.

 

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Image WE_GENERATE (beta) Chinatown, Manhattan

WE_GENERATE (beta) Chinatown, Manhattan

Featured, Urban Planning, Workshops, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Civic Tech

WE_GENERATE (beta) is an interactive, participatory digital tool for communities and professionals that democratizes neighborhood planning by empowering citizens to visualize and shape urban building and renovation projects, analyze multiple trade-offs, and make persuasive data-backed choices that further public health, resilience, preservation, and urban justice.

Learn More
Image The Plan for Chinatown and Surrounding Areas: Preserving Affordability and Authenticity

The Plan for Chinatown and Surrounding Areas: Preserving Affordability and Authenticity

Urban Planning, Workshops, Sustainable Design, Advocacy Initiatives, Comprehensive Plan

The “Plan for Chinatown and Surrounding Areas: Preserving Affordability and Authenticity” was a collaborative, multi-disciplinary effort built upon meetings, interviews, surveys, and consultation with many of the 51 member organizations of the Chinatown Working Group (CWG) in Lower Manhattan. The CWG plan set the basis for a rezoning of the area in order to stabilize and increase the amount of affordable housing in Chinatown and the Lower East Side while preserving and creating more small business and cultural opportunities.

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Image Bronx CD7 – Land Use and Zoning Study

Bronx CD7 – Land Use and Zoning Study

Urban Planning, Workshops

The Collective conducted a study to assess land use and zoning patterns and developed a long-term vision for parts of Bedford Park and Kingsbridge Heights, in the Bronx with community input, resulting in recommendations to Community Board 7.

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Image West 22nd Open Street & Shared Street, Chelsea

West 22nd Open Street & Shared Street, Chelsea

Urban Planning, Workshops, Sustainable Design, Urban Design

The Collective, together with clients and local partners, collaborated on a community workshop designed to re-envision the future of the West 22nd Open Street between 7th & 8th Avenues in Chelsea.

CCCE designed, co-led, and evaluated the workshop, and designed three Shared Street options. After CB4 approval, NYC DOT built Phase 1 of the project –  the first residential Shared Street in the City.

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Image Ravenswood Queens Community Land Trust Visioning Workshops

Ravenswood Queens Community Land Trust Visioning Workshops

Urban Planning, Workshops, Community Land Trust

The Collective, together with the NYCHA Ravenswood Residents Association, and other Western Queens partners, collaborated on two community workshops designed to kick-start a visioning process for a new building on a site near the Ravenswood Houses.

CCCE conducted historic research, developed site and zoning analyses, and designed, co-led, and evaluated the workshops.

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Image CCCE Testimony Supporting the Regulation of Indirect Air Pollution

CCCE Testimony Supporting the Regulation of Indirect Air Pollution

CCCE supports regulation of the last mile ecommerce warehouses that are increasing in numbers, generate significant air emissions and are clustered in environmental justice communities. This testimony supports “Int 1130-2024” a NYC City Council bill that would require the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to promulgate an “Indirect Source Rule” to reduce emissions attributable to indirect sources, such as warehouses or other structures that attract mobile sources of air pollution from trucks and other vehicles.

Click the link on this page to read CCCE’s testimony.

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Image City of Yes: CCCE Testimonies on Carbon Neutrality, Economic & Housing Opportunities

City of Yes: CCCE Testimonies on Carbon Neutrality, Economic & Housing Opportunities

In response to Mayor Adam’s and the NYC Department of City Planning’s City of Yes zoning and land use proposals, the Collective’s planners and architects developed detailed analysis, discussion and policy recommendations. CCCE submitted oral and written testimonies to the New York City Council on:

  • City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality (2023)
  • City of Yes for Economic Opportunity (2024)
  • City of Yes for Housing Opportunity (2024)

Click the links on this page to read and explore each of these detailed testimonies.

Learn More
Image CCCE Response to NYC Charter Revision Ballot Proposals 2 to 4

CCCE Response to NYC Charter Revision Ballot Proposals 2 to 4

Urban Planning

Like most New Yorkers, Collective members have diverse opinions about the three housing-themed initiatives on the November 2025 ballot – specifically Ballot Questions 2, 3, & 4.

Because of this diversity of opinion, this statement is not an endorsement for or against any one of these three ballot questions. Instead, it is offered in the spirit of public awareness and the hope that our observations and reflections will help voters make informed choices.

Learn More
Image Ossining N.Y. Housing Vacancy Study

Ossining N.Y. Housing Vacancy Study

Urban Planning, Affordable Housing

The Village of Ossining selected CCCE to conduct a Housing Vacancy Study to determine the vacancy rate in buildings with at least six dwelling units that were completed prior to January 1, 1974. Pursuant to the New York State Emergency Tenant Protection Act, if there is less than a 5% vacancy rate in such buildings, a housing emergency can be declared and rent regulations can be imposed.

 

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Image Community Visioning for Edgemere Queens

Community Visioning for Edgemere Queens

Urban Planning, Workshops, Urban Design, Community Land Trust, Waterfront Resilience

Through focused organizing and strategic support, CCCE and Rockaway nonprofit partner RISE worked on a project led by Edgemere community members to articulate and advocate their own response and build a consensus around a vision for socially and ecologically beneficial use of undeveloped, flood-prone city-owned vacant land.

Learn More
Image National Congress of Neighborhood Women

National Congress of Neighborhood Women

Workshops, Planning, Real-Estate Feasibility Study

CCCE was engaged to assist the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, a long-term non-profit women’s organization based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to articulate its vision for the future and the use of the building they own at 249 Manhattan Avenue. More specifically, this effort included several meetings with the group to explore the thoughts of the NCNW Board members and key stakeholders on directions for the future of the organization and the possible uses of their building. To facilitate decision-making about the building, CCCE prepared a zoning analysis and a preliminary building analysis that proposed design layouts/massing based on what the zoning would permit, and the group’s programmatic directions identified in the initial conversations.  A report summarizing the findings and preliminary design options was submitted to the group and was discussed by CCCE and the Board and stakeholders in early 2021. The report’s recommendations also served as the basis of subsequent meetings on next steps held by NCNW.

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People

Members

Eve Baron

Eve Baron

Urban Planner

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Molly Blann

Molly Blann

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Meta Brunzema

Meta Brunzema

Architecture and Urban Design

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Paula Luria Caplan

Paula Luria Caplan

Urban Planning

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Jocelyne Chait

Jocelyne Chait

Community Planning

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Devyani Guha

Devyani Guha

Community Planning and Development

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Jill Hamberg

Jill Hamberg

Urban Planning, Research and Policy

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Eva Hanhardt

Eva Hanhardt

Community and Environmental Planning

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Andrea Johnson

Andrea Johnson

Urban Designer and Planner

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Zehra Kuz

Zehra Kuz

Architecture and Environmental Design

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Mercedes Narciso

Mercedes Narciso

Architecture and Urban Planning

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Eva Neubauer Alligood

Eva Neubauer Alligood

Community Development & Urban Planning

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Jina Porter

Jina Porter

Urban Planning

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Yvette Shiffmann

Yvette Shiffmann

Affordable Housing and Community Development

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Patricia Swann

Patricia Swann

Urban Planner / Community Development Advocate

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Evren Uzer

Evren Uzer

Community Engagement and Community Planning and Design

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Ayse Yonder

Ayse Yonder

Community Development and Disaster/Resiliency Planning

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Affiliates

Caron Atlas

Caron Atlas

Arts and Participatory Democracy Consultant

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Patricia Barrera

Patricia Barrera

Land Use and Affordable Housing

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Beth Bingham

Beth Bingham

Planning and Historic Preservation

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Leslie F. Boden

Leslie F. Boden

Community Health Planning and Program Development

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Wendy Brawer

Wendy Brawer

Sustainable Design, Mapping and Communications

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Caitlin Cahill

Caitlin Cahill

Community Participation and Environmental Psychology

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Linda Cohen

Linda Cohen

Community Organizer

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Anu Delouri

Anu Delouri

Architecture, Planning, and Government & Community Relations

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Yuliya Dzyuban

Yuliya Dzyuban

Architect and Sustainability Scientist

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Wendy Fleischer

Wendy Fleischer

Energy Urban Planning and Environmental Justice

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Tarry Hum

Tarry Hum

Urban Planner

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Beth B. Rosenthal

Beth B. Rosenthal

Community, Organizational and Collaboration Development

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Peg Seip

Peg Seip

Community Planning and Development

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Martha Sickles

Martha Sickles

Urban Planning and Energy

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Patricia Voltolini

Patricia Voltolini

Urban Planning and Economic Development

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Laura Wolf-Powers

Laura Wolf-Powers

Planning and Economic Development

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News

Image CCCE City Limits Op-Ed: New York City Has a Chance to Plan for Everyone. Will We Take It?

07 / 30 / 2026

CCCE City Limits Op-Ed: New York City Has a Chance to Plan for Everyone. Will We Take It?

"New York City currently operates without a comprehensive plan to guide its growth and development—making it an outlier among major American cities, which routinely use such frameworks to balance citywide needs with local ones.”

READ the OP-ED HERE

CCCE's urban planners Eve Baron and Jocelyne Chait argue that the time has come to implement a Comprehensive Plan for New York City:

  • First, establish a comprehensive planning framework that connects neighborhood plans to citywide goals—so that communities planning for their own futures are contributing to, not competing with, a shared vision for the city.
  • Second, resource community boards and communities to actually do this work. That means planning expertise on staff, technical support from the Department of City Planning, and accessible processes that don’t systematically disadvantage low-income communities or those with language barriers.
  • Third, commit to implementation. A community plan that is approved and then ignored is worse than no plan at all—it confirms the cynicism it was meant to overcome. Planning and budgetary decisions, rezonings, and development approvals should be required to demonstrate alignment with adopted community plans.

City Limits Op-Ed

Image Equity Planning: A call to Mayor Mamdani to strengthen NYC’s planning process and build equity for all New Yorkers

03 / 21 / 2026

Equity Planning: A call to Mayor Mamdani to strengthen NYC’s planning process and build equity for all New Yorkers

READ OUR NEW POSITION PAPER ABOUT COMMUNITY-BASED COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING

It is exciting that Mayor Mamdani has embraced the concept of comprehensive planning as a key policy platform.  We firmly believe, however, that a comprehensive planning agenda must include both citywide and local perspectives.  As a group, as individuals, and in coalition with others, we have fought long and hard to ensure that New Yorkers have a voice in the future of their city and their neighborhoods, and that equity guides our decision-making processes. These four principles must guide reform of the planning process:

  • Create a comprehensive planning framework, that spells out goals and specific objectives and benchmarks while balancing citywide and local needs
  • Provide communities with planning expertise
  • Ensure that community plans reflect diverse community interests
  • Ensure that there is a real commitment to implementing community-sponsored local plans

Link to CCCE Project Page and Position Paper

Image CCCE Response to NYC Charter Revision Ballot Proposals 2 to 4

10 / 26 / 2025

CCCE Response to NYC Charter Revision Ballot Proposals 2 to 4

Like most New Yorkers, Collective members have diverse opinions about the three housing-themed initiatives on the November 2025 ballot – specifically Ballot Questions 2, 3, & 4.

Because of this diversity of opinion, this statement is not an endorsement for or against any one of these three ballot questions. Instead, it is offered in the spirit of public awareness and the hope that our observations and reflections will help voters make informed choices.

Link to CCCE Project Page & Report

Image CAHRE

03 / 09 / 2025

CAHRE

The CAHRE (Caregiver Affordable Housing for a Resilient Economy) model and policy proposal is an innovative approach to building healthy, stable, and resilient communities and ageing in place in NYC.  It is about providing deeply affordable housing for low- and moderate-income healthcare workers in proximity to the senior and disabled people that they serve to enhance health care services provided at the local level as part of neighborhood social infrastructure.

  • Check out our white paper and NEW video!

CAHRE project page

Image CCCE Testimony: City of Yes for Housing Opportunity

10 / 19 / 2024

CCCE Testimony: City of Yes for Housing Opportunity

Read the Collective's Testimony submitted to the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

CCCE Testimony: City of Yes for Housing Opportunity