Commissioners

Commissioner Meenakshi Srinivasan, Chair

Meenakshi Srinivasan

Meenakshi Srinivasan serves as both chair and commissioner of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is the largest municipal preservation agency in the United States. Chair Srinivasan was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014, and manages a staff of approximately 80 architects, archaeologists, preservationists, historians, attorneys, and administrators, whose mission is to protect more than 36,000 architecturally, historically, and culturally significant sites in all five boroughs, and identify and designate new landmark buildings, sites, and districts.

Chair Srinivasan is a planner and urban designer, with a longstanding commitment to public service. She has more than two decades of experience working in various aspects of New York City's land use process. Prior to her appointment, Chair Srinivasan served for ten years as the chair and commissioner of the Board of Standards and Appeals. Under her leadership, application guidelines were overhauled, the Board's rules and procedures streamlined, and the quality of analyses related to land use, urban design, economic feasibility and legal precedents, greatly improved.  She also established significant changes to the agency's technology including digital application filings and review, and on-line access to application data and decisions.

Prior to that, Chair Srinivasan worked for the Manhattan Office of the Department of City Planning in various capacities, including as deputy director, team leader and project manager. She led some of the agency's highest profile projects, including the zoning framework for Hudson Yards, the air-rights transfers for Broadway theaters, and contextual rezonings of East and Central Harlem.

An architect by training, Chair Srinivasan holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India, and earned a Master of Architecture and a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an honoree of the Society of Indo-American Engineers and Architects and the New York Society of Architects.