Mayor de Blasio Appoints Rachel Godsil as New Chair of Rent Guidelines Board

April 24, 2014

NEW YORK—Mayor de Blasio today announced the appointment of Rachel Godsil as Chair of the Rent Guidelines Board. The Rent Guidelines Board determines annual rent adjustments for approximately one million apartments across the city subject to the Rent Stabilization Law.

Godsil is an accomplished attorney and professor specializing in issues of housing, land use and social justice. She is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and previously clerked for John M. Walker of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Mayor previously appointed Sarah Williams Willard as an owners’ representative, Cecilia Joza and Steven Flax as public members of the board, and Sheila Garcia as a tenant representative. The Mayor also re-appointed current tenants’ representative Harvey Epstein to the board.

About Rachel Godsil

Rachel Godsil currently serves as the Eleanor Bontecou Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law. Godsil’s areas of expertise include property, land use, environmental justice, education and race. Her recent property work focuses on the mortgage crisis and eminent domain, as well as the intersection of race, poverty and land use decisions. 

Godsil previously clerked for John M. Walker of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. She was an associate counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focusing on environmental justice, as well as an associate with Berle, Kass & Case and Arnold & Porter in New York City.

After serving as the convener for the Obama campaign’s Urban and Metropolitan Policy Committee and an advisor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development transition team, Professor Godsil co-directed a report to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

She joined Seton Hall University School of Law in 2000 and has been recognized for her teaching by being nominated for Professor of the Year in 2002 and 2003. She was named Researcher of the Year in Law by Seton Hall University. She has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and New York University Law School. Godsil lives in Brooklyn.