Lander directed the Pratt Center for Community Development and Fifth Avenue Committee. He served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a not-for-profit community-based organization that develops and manages affordable housing. As a director, Lander won local and national recognition for his work at FAC including the 2000 New York Magazine Civics Award, and the 2002 Leadership for a Changing World award, sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Sustainable Communities. In 1999, Rolling Stone Magazine awarded Lander the "Do Something Brick Award" for his community work in affordable housing advocacy. Other awards from the Ford Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation and the University of Chicago were granted throughout his tenure as a director. Lander is the former Director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. He stepped down after six years as head of the organization to seek a seat on the New York City Council. He teaches community planning, housing, and urban policy at Brooklyn Law School. As the director of the Pratt Center, Lander has been a critic of the Bloomberg administration's development policies. he has also been a critic of the Atlantic Yards project. Lander's work in 2003–2005 on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning led to the first New York City inclusionary housing program to create affordable housing in new development outside Manhattan. Lander served on a mayoral taskforce that recommended reforms to the 421-a tax exemption for luxury housing and required that new development in certain areas of the city set aside affordable housing units. He co-led the completion of the One City One Future platform, a progressive vision for economic development in New York City.
Lander was first elected to office on the Democratic Party and Working Families Party lines on November 4, 2009, with 70% of the vote. Lander won a hotly contested Democratic Primary on September 15, 2009 with 41% of the vote in a field of five. Lander was reelected on the Democratic and Working Families Parties' lines on November 5, 2013 to serve for a second term. Lander is a co-founder of the Progressive Caucus in the New York City Council, a group that was described by the New York Times as "the City Council’s most liberal members." For his first term, Brad shared the title of Co-Chair of this caucus with his Manhattan colleague Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was unanimously elected Speaker of the City Council in early 2014. Lander was one of four original Council Members to bring participatory budgeting to New York City, a project that allows citizens to directly propose, develop, and vote on items in the municipal budget. Over half of the 51 New York City Council Districts now engage in Participatory Budgeting. Lander opposed rezoning the site of Long Island College Hospital to include affordable housing. As of July 2017, he was the primary sponsor of 20 Local Laws enacted by the City Council and signed by the Mayor. In addition to these efforts, Lander played a prominent role in helping shepherd the Community Safety Act to passage, in partnership with Council Member Jumaane Williams. By April 2020, Lander had sponsored over 2,254 article of legislation. City and State New York ranked Councilmember Lander in the lower half of NYC Lawmakers ranking him 30th out of the 51 councilmembers. Lander has drawn criticism and, in his words, "anger" and "suspicion" for vocally supporting contracts for two homeless shelters despite multiple press reports that those contracts contain up to $89 million of unexplained cost compared to contracts for equivalent shelters and that there is no apparent explanation for the increased cost. Lander also acknowledged that the contracts will benefit developers accused of wrongdoing in the past. In his second term on the Council, Lander served as the deputy leader for policy. It was during this term where he admitted to ethics violation using his position to solicit donations for a non-profit he helped to create.
Comptroller
Facing term limits for his council seat after his second term, Lander announced he is running for New York City Comptroller in 2021. The race will be for an open position as current Comptroller, Scott Stringer, is also facing term limits and will vacate the seat. Fellow city councilmember Helen Rosenthal has also announced a run.
