Based in the heart of the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, CHDC is made up of approximately 112 staff members. The organization currently consists of seven divisions: Development, Housing Management, Housing Maintenance, Horticulture, Community Cultivation, Finance, and Operations. Our social services division is under contract with Hudson Guild.
Joe Restuccia has been involved in the preservation and creation of affordable housing in the Clinton, Hell’s Kitchen and Chelsea neighborhoods of Manhattan since 1980. He started as a tenant organizer at Housing Conservation Coordinators (HCC) before moving to Clinton Housing Development Company (CHDC) in 1983. He held various development and housing management positions until 1986 when he was appointed Executive Director. During his tenure as Executive Director CHDC has developed over 1,200 units of affordable housing in 80 buildings on the Westside of Manhattan. Mr. Restuccia has overseen the growth of the Company’s net assets from $250,000 to over $203,000,000 during his leadership.
He has been a member of the boards of the Task Force on City Owned Property, the Association of Neighborhood Housing and Development, the Clinton Mutual Housing Association, and the Enterprise Foundation Community Advisory Board. He is a past president of the Clinton Planning Council and has served on the boards of the Clinton Seed Fund, Clinton Housing Association, the Clinton Preservation Fund Advisory Committee, and the Clinton Urban Renewal Area Coordinating Committee.
A member of Manhattan Community Board #4 since 1982, Mr. Restuccia has served as its vicechair, and at various times chaired Housing, Land Use, Clinton Steering, Clinton Preservation and Housing, Health & Human Services Committees. He has also chaired several community board Task Forces including Times Square Redevelopment, Covenant House Redevelopment, Clinton Special District, Clinton Urban Renewal, 34th Street Rezoning and Affordable Housing Development Task Forces. In the above capacities, he has led community negotiations and settlements, which produced or preserved 1,540 affordable apartments in 126 buildings. The Times Square settlement resulted in $25,000,000 in city and state funding for affordable housing renovated and acquired in the Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Mr. Restuccia served as member of the Manhattan Borough President’s Garment Center Steering Committee. He was founding member of the Hell’s Kitchen South Coalition (HKSC) which developed a community plan in response to Port Authority Bus Terminal Expansion.
He is currently a member of the Board’s Port Authority Working Group and the Port Authority’s Bi-State Working Group regarding the reconstruction of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He is a founding member of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Coalition, a broad-based group community, block associations and property owners, responding to the current public safety crisis on the Westside of Manhattan. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance the Business Improvement District serving the Middle Westside from West 30th to West 42nd Streets, west of 9th Avenue.
Mr. Restuccia is a recognized expert on the Clinton Special Zoning District; he both consults and has testified as an expert witness on its regulations. He has been a key participant in the rezoning of Hell’s Kitchen/Hudson Yards, West Chelsea, the Western Railyards and the Garment Center. That experience in negotiating land use and zoning issues in the public sector, has also enabled CHDC to bring resolution to difficult development sites in the private sector, with multiple legal and financial encumbrances. Those efforts have resulted in the production of 281 units of affordable housing and over a 1,000 units of market rate housing.
Fluent in French, Italian & Spanish, he is a graduate of Universite de Grenoble, France & Istituto Michelangelo, Firenze, Italy, and attended New York University. He has resided in Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen since 1979.
Ryan has worked with Clinton Housing Development Company for over 10 years. She started as an Executive Assistant, a job she held for one and half years. When leadership noticed she had a knack for people, she became the leader of the HR Department. Since 2012, she has served as the Director of HR and was instrumental in revising personnel policies, maintenance systems, and internal reporting. Ryan has a passion for people and understanding what motivates them. Because of this, she continues to be an integral part of the CHDC team.
Meral Marino is a deeply experienced plant woman. Meral was born in Istanbul, Turkey. When she was six, her family migrated/moved to Austria and lived in a small town surrounded by farms, hills, and forests. It was there that Meral grew up surrounded by the magic of nature, spending her childhood running outdoors amidst the woods and wildlife. Meral moved to Rome in her early 20’s and continued to deepen her knowledge and relationship with plants and gardens of the Mediterranean. Meral emigrated to New York City nearly 20 years ago, initially working in a restaurant - but the plants were always calling.
In 2004, Meral decided to change careers and pursue her lifelong love of plants. She began by working with the NYC Parks Department’s pilot horticulture program, obtaining a Certificate from the New York Botanical Gardens. After two years working for Parks, she became an AmeriCorps member with the New York Restoration Project (NYRP). Since 2012 she has worked at Clinton Housing Development Company’s Department of Community Cultivation, where she manages dozens of small urban gardens, gardens based in affordable housing, street plantings and over 100 city street trees. Meral is always working to connect the community with plants, gardens and the love of the outdoors and does so each day at CHDC.
William Kelley, an urban planning professional with over 20 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, joined CHDC in 2022 as Director of Planning and Programs. Before coming to CHDC, he was most recently Executive Director of the Village Alliance Business Improvement District, where he led the transformation of Astor Place, 8th Street and dozens of surrounding blocks into beautiful and welcoming public spaces that host community programs year round.
Prior to managing neighborhood service delivery and placemaking projects in Greenwich Village and Union Square, William held community development and strategic planning positions at the NYC Economic Development Corporation, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the NYC Department of Transportation and as a private consultant. He received a Master of Urban Planning degree from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service and also attended Rice University in his home state of Texas. William's connection with CHDC dates back to the late 1990s when he was District Manager of Manhattan Community Board 4, and he is thrilled to return and steward the organization's planning and programming efforts.
Aimee DeCicco came to CHDC in 1991 with a Masters Degree in Real Estate Development and Investment from New York University and 3 years of experience in commercial lending. She brought an understanding of Real Estate Finance to CHDC’s Development Department and quickly rose to the position of Director of Housing Development.
During the period from 1991-1999, CHDC was deeply involved in the development of Supportive Housing buildings financed with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and below-market rate loans from the City of New York. The projects produced hundreds of affordable units with supportive social services and many units of affordable housing for families in addition to ground floor commercial retail. Aimee left in the summer of 1999 to take control of her family business in NJ and to raise her three children. She returned to CHDC in 2009 as a part-time Asset Manager and was soon recruited to take on the full-time Director of Finance position.
Aimee took over the conversion of CHDC’s bookkeeping to a fully integrated accounting software system and under her control the department and the larger organization have seen year-over-year financial gains since 2010. In 2012, she assumed responsibility for overseeing the Asset Manager, Human Resources Manager and the Administrative staff. Aimee is also responsible for all commercial leasing activities.